Unseeing Surveillance: On Making Efforts to Wilfully Ignore Surveillance in Everyday Life

Sammanfattning: During the last decade, an increasing number of technological developments have occurred that utilise surveillance for functionality. Much of modern means of communication and socialising now firmly rest on surveillance technology. Whereas most scholarly work aims to interpret the effects of surveillance on individuals through an aggregated perspective, this thesis explores a more grounded approach. Concretely, this anthropological study investigates how Lund University students between the ages of 20–28 imagine surveillance and its impacts on their daily lives. For this purpose, ethnographic fieldwork between November 2021 and February 2022 was conducted. Through the use of participant observations, unstructured interviews, and qualitative diaries, this study argues that individuals engage in a process of “unseeing” surveillance in everyday life. Specifically, people make efforts to wilfully ignore surveillance and its impacts to allow for a proper functioning of daily routines. The study concludes by arguing that in order to better understand the consequences of endemic surveillance, more attention must be given to empowering approaches in studying surveillance and its impacts on everyday life.