Open AccessSurveillance and the redefinition of individuals and reality
Author(s) -
Jaseff Raziel Yauri-Miranda
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
revista teknokultura
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1549-2230
DOI - 10.5209/tekn.74723
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , ontology , perspective (graphical) , reading (process) , autopoiesis , structure and agency , epistemology , social reality , resistance (ecology) , sociology , power (physics) , psychology , social psychology , knowledge management , computer science , social science , artificial intelligence , political science , ecology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , law , biology
This essay provides an overview of the relationship between surveillance, individuals, and reality. To do this, I use a multilevel perspective that connects power (from agency to structure) to social systems theory. This novel approach means taking a holistic view on how individuals are managed beyond ideas of resistance and technology. At the agency level, individuals are constrained by continuous interactions through digital and behavioral exploitation. In the second meso-level, individuals attach to an informational system that renders, sorts, and distorts data fragments that resemble their ontology. Finally, at the structural level, more than being fragmented subjects, I argue that individuals and data constitute a new hermeneutic cycle in which reality itself is redefined in an autopoietic reading of things distanced from subjects and knowledge.