The Preventative Panopticon: Considering the Experience of Being Monitored at Archaeological Sites

• In Event: Innovative Approaches to Heritage Crime & Justice

Abstract

The utilitarian trade-off between privacy and concepts of "public good" by way of assumed crime prevention has been a topic of significant criminological discussion for centuries, intensifying with the introduction of monitoring technologies in recent decades. Yet the conversion of heritage spaces to securitisation and monitoring spaces has only occasionally received attention from criminological researchers. This paper starts with two questions: Could effectively protecting an archaeological site from destructive crime affect the experience of the site for visitors? Are the potential crime-prevention benefits worth any negative social effects? Part of the EU-funded Revitaliser project, it draws from existing research on the experience of securitisation and target hardening in museums at heritage sites, and non-heritage focused criminological research on the experience of being monitored to consider the potential social effects of particularly camera and drone based archaeological site monitoring.

Authors

• Donna Yates, Maastricht University

• Dante Abate, ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence

• Hector Orengo, Barcelona Supercomputing Center

• Fabio Remondino, Fondazione Bruno Kessler