Surveillance Noir

In the preface to Feminist Surveillance, Mark Andrejevic argues: 'if in the physical environment the pressing issue of the next several decades is likely to be the dramatic transformation of the global climate, in the social realm, the main issue will be the shifting surveillance climate.' This Element outlines this emerging climate by articulating a subgenre that may be termed 'Surveillance Noir.' Surveillance Noir traces the effects of living in a world where individuals are judged through their data, which is continually and often invisibly collected, interpreted, and redistributed throughout a network. This installment examines these effects by exploring the relationship between contemporary fiction – including The Candy House, Against a Loveless World and Shadow Ticket – and developments in international politics. Specifically, it considers the impact of surveillance regimes on the bodies of women and minority groups, as well as the broader threat that surveillance technologies pose to individual agency.