Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Globalization and Surveillance

This book offers a lively, accessible, and informative introduction to surveillance through the lens of globalization, and globalization through the lens of surveillance. The story that unfolds is wide-ranging, taking a thoroughly multidimensional and transdisciplinary approach that brings clarity to a complex subject. Drawing a long historical arc, and freely crisscrossing the Global North/South and subjective/material divides, Timothy Erik Ström convincingly shows how surveillance and capitalism are inextricably linked, illustrating this through in-depth studies on colonial land surveys, the military-industrial complex, Google, and China's Social Credit System. Drawing on a wealth of empirical examples and theoretically informed reflections, his book is an accessible example of engaged scholarship that provides a provocative and critical examination of the uneven and contradictory meanings and consequences of surveillance and globalization. Review In an important and timely intervention, Timothy Ström has crafted an invaluable conceptual roadmap for understanding the global surveillance economy. This engagingly written and elegantly conceived book locates contemporary surveillance in its broader social contexts with the goal of imagining, against all odds, how these might be different--and better.--Mark Andrejevic, Monash University Upgrading critiques of surveillance for the twenty-first century, Tim Ström reveals its governing paradox of absolute control and utter powerlessness. Governmental and corporate surveillance technologies are locked into the logic of a system that cannot function if its bosses are not themselves completely submissive. In meticulous detail, Ström shows how the smallest engineering decision rests on histories of colonialism and perpetuates a global system of injustice and inequality and how globalization, as a system of exploitation and oppression, shapes and is shaped by the software we so often see as helpful and at worst neutral. A wake-up call for citizens, consumers, students, and activists.--Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne With a breathtakingly wide brush--both historical and geographical--Tim Ström paints a compelling picture of surveillance as a crucial companion of colonization, capitalism, and war in the modern world. Thankfully, he also offers clues as to how things could be otherwise.--David Lyon, Queen's University, Canada About the Author Timothy Erik Ström is based in Melbourne, where he is a resident academic at Arena, and teaches in RMIT University’s School of Global Studies. He is a recent PhD from Western Sydney University’s Institute for Culture and Society.