Racialized Surveillance of Parks and Pools in a Liberal Predominantly White Neighborhood

• In Event: 3103 - Race and Racism After Technology

Abstract

This qualitative study examines racialized surveillance strategies used by residents of a liberal, predominantly white neighborhood in the American South to monitor their neighborhood’s parks and pools for people who purportedly look like “they don’t belong here” and the differential impacts these practices have on residents of color. Using prior research on race, racism, digital technologies, and surveillance in predominantly white spaces as well as an analysis of in-depth interviews and online materials, we find that residents engage in both digital and in-person surveillance efforts to monitor their neighborhood’s open spaces. These patterns rely on and reproduce particular racialized notions of who is and who is not a resident. These forms of racialized boundary maintenance and monitoring exact a toll especially on residents of color who report taking extra precautions in their neighborhood’s parks and pools, challenging people’s online and in-person surveillance behaviors, limiting their use of both the neighborhood’s open spaces and Facebook page, and having considered moving out of the neighborhood altogether.

Authors

• Maria R. Lowe, Southwestern University

• Madeline Carrola, Southwestern University

• Dakota Cortez, Southwestern University

• Mary Jalufka, Southwestern University