states and surveillance Flashcards
surveillance of sexuality
Sexual hierarchy upheld by state
Surveillance and enforcement of sexual laws, norms
historical state surveillance
Surveillance of same-sex sexual activitiy
Always tied to power relations
Female refuges act
Passed in Ontario in 1897
Allowed for incarceration of women, 16-35, for up to 5 years
No crime required
Statement of women’s incorrigibility
In place through 1958
State building + examples
the act of producing and maintaining a state
Material (Wars for boundaries)
Institutional (bureaucracies, government)
Cultural (Who we are, who we are not)
Settler colonialism
Manipulate, move, restrict indigenous populations
Extreme surveillance and social control by British authorities over indigenous peoples
Sexual practices, family formation as key markers of “otherness”
Brutal practices to enforce colonial sexuality
Bureaucratic control
Government agents were regulators of Indigenous women’s sexuality
Control of treaty payments
Power to take children away
Control over access to women’s own resources
Jail
Family formation
Control over marriage/divorce
For women, marriage to white or nonstatus man risks loss of status
Gay Purge
1950s: Attacks on homosexual community in post-WWII era
which led to the creation of gay neighborhoods in big cities
Fears of communist infiltration (red scare) of military and civil service and gay ppl became the scapegoats
inequality in surveillance + examples
Same groups are subject to greater state surveillance of all behaviour:
Immigrants
low -income families
Indigenous peoples
Members of racialized communities
Members of the LGBTQ+ communities
LGBTQ2+ parents
Heteronormativity marks LGBTQ2+ parents for greater scrutiny
Schools keeps eye on parents
Magnified for marginalized parents
Schools are watching
kids are being watched, too
Informal practice, formal policy
Trans kids, and kids with expansive gender presentations are experiencing heightened surveillance
