"I Ain't Even Gonna Cap to It": Ethnography-as-Surveillance and Dark Sousveillance in the Classroom

• In Event: Surveillance, Disruption, and Resistance in Schools

Abstract

This article theorizes classroom ethnography as a form of racialized surveillance. Focusing on the interaction of “Dominic,” a Black focal student, frame analysis is used to investigate how researcher surveillance becomes relevant and is negotiated. The analysis demonstrates that a surveillance frame was consequential to Dominic’s interaction and that Dominic’s verbal behavior was sensitive to the racialized element of surveillance generally and to anti-blackness specifically. The analysis further shows how Dominic engaged in “dark sousveillance” (Browne, 2015) as a form of ethnographic refusal, and the ensuing discussion considers the ways that ethnographic representation of dark sousveillance and other Black fugitive practices can recursively promote “abolitionist” (Shange, 2019) goals.

Author

• Justin Pannell, The University of Pennsylvania