This book critically investigates the politics of surveillance technologies in everyday life. From biometric technologies at airports and borders, to video surveillance in schools, to radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in hospitals, to magnetic-strips on welfare food cards – surveillance technologies integrate into all aspects of modern life, but with varied effects for different populations. By focusing on everyday examples, this collection reveals how power is mobilized and contested through surveillance technologies. The result is a fresh and empirically grounded look at surveillance and security.

Contributors include: Peter Adey, Heather Cameron, Nancy Campbell, Simon Cole, Lane DeNicola, Aaron Doyle, Virginia Eubanks, Jill Fisher, Laura Huey, Institute for Applied Autonomy, Cindi Katz, Andrew Lakoff, David Lyon, Gary Marx, Torin Monahan, Henry Pontell, Irma van der Ploeg, Kevin Walby, and Langdon Winner.ra

Monahan, Torin. 2005. Globalization, Technological Change, and Public Education. New York: Routledge.

This book documents "globalization on the ground" in public schools. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic research and interviews in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the book analyzes the everyday practices of individuals navigating technology policies through this recently decentralized school district. It describes the ways that social group conflicts and political values become embedded in decisions, such as the setting of equipment specifications, and then built into durable material forms.

The book concludes that with few exceptions, educational technologies are forcing both students and workers to adapt to global systems that are ever more rigid and controlling. Nonetheless, a key secondary finding is that flexible production models can be enabling and empowering for students, teachers, and other actors in the system, provided that flexibility is achieved in organizational structures, policies, and architectural designs.