Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Access Criminology and Criminal Justice journals now

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
European Journal of Criminology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wood, D. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The `Surveillance Society'

Questions of History, Place and Culture

David Murakami Wood

Global Urban Research Unit (GURU), Newcastle University, UK, d.f.j.wood{at}newcastle.ac.uk

The concept of the `surveillance society' has become a central part of the emerging transdisciplinary narrative of surveillance studies, and is now to be found as much in criminology as in many of the other domains upon which it draws. This piece takes on two key problems generated by contemporary use of the term `surveillance society'; those of its historical novelty and its general geographical or cultural generalizability. In this article, I show that the historical development of arguments about surveillance have created particular and changing ideas of the `surveillance society'. However the contemporary period opens up questions of geography and culture. With reference to the comparative case of Japan, I argue both that a contextual understanding of both surveillance and `surveillance society' is crucial. While surveillance is involved with processes of globalization, it is also not necessarily the same `surveillance society' that one sees in different places and at different scales. Surveillance is historically, spatially and culturally located.

Key Words: Comparative Studies • Globalization • Japan • Surveillance • Surveillance Society.

European Journal of Criminology, Vol. 6, No. 2, 179-194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1477370808100545
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?