Lens and Mangle: Surveillance Technologies and the Co-Production of Mexico’s Security State

• In Event: 069 - Section on Sociology of Law Paper Session. Promises and Problems of Sociology, Law, and Technology

Abstract

Across the globe, governments have turned to advanced technologies in order to manage security. As President of Mexico from 2006 to 2012, Felipe Calderón launched a number of programs— the National Registry of Mobile Telephone Users (RENAUT), the Citizen Identity Card (CEDI), and the Public Registry of Vehicles (REPUVE)—as part of a larger War on Crime that would utilize surveillance technologies to disrupt organized crime. On their face, the programs exemplify central themes in the field of surveillance studies. Using technological means, the programs would “social sort”, as David Lyon has termed it, between trustworthy and disreputable individuals to manage criminal risk. However, the Mexican government’s vision for security largely failed. Based on field research conducted in Mexico and drawing from science and technology studies (STS) and socio-legal research, this paper attempts to make sense of this history. The paper argues that Mexico’s plans for its security state were thwarted by multiple points of resistance from national citizens, multinational corporations, the organization of the Mexican state, and the technologies themselves. These difficulties have not meant the death of the security state however, as government planners have proven adept at finding common ground with those persons and things resisting them, a process of “co-production” involving humans and nonhumans, as Sheila Jasanoff has described it. This suggests points of connection between diverse fields of social scientific research to better describe the operation and meaning of surveillance technologies in contemporary society.

Author

• Keith W. Guzik, University of Colorado-Denver