INTRODUCTION
My name is Mark Friedman and I am a
senior, double majoring in the Environmental Science (BS) and Environmental
Studies (BA) programs at the University of Washington Tacoma. I am also
completing a geo track with these degrees. I have taken many geology classes,
including geology 101, physical geology, geologic catastrophes, sedimentology,
field geology, environmental geology, and I completed my capstone with a
sedimentology research project with Dr. Sian Davies- Vollum and Dr. Peter
Selkin of UWT, working to identify wind-blown sediments in the Sarmiento
formation in the Gran Barranca region of Argentina.
This is my first attempt at writing
a blog, and I am looking forward to the experience! I was born and raised in
Federal Way, and am a native Washingtonian. I love to camp, fish, hike, gold
pan, play sports (mainly basketball and football), and I also enjoy a good game
of madden now and again. I am a musician, and I have been writing and recording
music for over 15 years. I have a wonderful, loving and supportive family and a
fantastic girlfriend. I have spent two and a half years at UWT and I am so
close to graduating that I can taste it! As much as I feed off of a learning
environment and I have loved the time I have spent at UWT, I am very excited to
enter the “real world” so to speak, and get my “real life” and career started.
Me and my girlfriend Stefani in Seattle (2012)
Lyon Summary of Chapter 3- Explaining Surveillance
In David
Lyon’s book “Surveillance Studies- An Overview”, he states that “By looking
historically at how explanations of surveillance have developed, analytically
at how surveillance processes and practices work, and critically at what the
main outcomes of surveillance are, we can put together an account of the
causes, courses, and consequences of surveillance.”. Summing it up in my own words, Lyon is saying
that by looking, throughout history, at how explanations of surveillance have
grown and how surveillance processes operate, as well as by observing the
results and consequences of surveillance, we can piece together the causes,
paths, and consequences behind the process of surveillance.
I find
this quote interesting because toward the beginning of chapter three
(Explaining Surveillance) Lyon states that surveillance is an ongoing topic of
conversation, and that there are concepts and ideas that ring true throughout the
discussion of surveillance, and these topics should be explored, but not
dwelled on. It seems that in saying it is possible to put together a vision of
the causes, paths, and consequences behind surveillance, we are not only
dwelling on concepts, but considering these concepts as fact. The difficulty of
this book may contribute to my misunderstanding of the difference between these
two statements, but it seems as if Lyon is contradicting himself a bit. Lyon
also states that knowledge is sought on the subject of surveillance. Maybe his
meaning is that this knowledge is sought in an attempt to put together all of
the pieces to the metaphorical surveillance puzzle.
When looking at causes of
surveillance, my take is that Lyon is referring to mainly militarily gained peace
through war, among other topics. Regarding paths, or “courses” of surveillance,
Lyon speaks on how surveillance increases itself by means of both real and perceived
increases of crime rate based on current surveillance. In other words, surveillance
is somewhat of a vicious cycle superseding itself. Lastly, with respect to
consequences of surveillance, I believe Lyon is referring mostly to “counterveillance”.
A term used to explain a community’s response to surveillance. Most commonly,
this is the act of the observed observing the observer in an attempt to get
around being a subject of surveillance.
This is an extremely dense book,
with multiple references to a myriad of authors and surveillance pioneers, and
the read is an extremely difficult one. I hope that this short synopsis has
shed some light on what I have learned from chapter three in Lyon’s book. I
will be continuing to attempt to make sense of what I read, and put it into
more digestible terms for the readers of this blog.
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