"There are no girls on the Internet.": Theoretical considerations in analyzing surveillance for gender-based violence in digital space.


Lucinda Yae-Rim Ro, York University

This paper aims to address the gaps in existing mainstream theorizations within the field of the sociology of technology, particularly in relation to surveillance studies. It highlights the need to expand and incorporate critical perspectives into current theoretical frameworks to effectively examine and understand the excessive surveillance and violence experienced by women and girls in both physical and digital spaces. While there have been growing efforts to integrate critical perspectives in recent years, mainstream theories on surveillance still exhibit a tendency to overlook or mention in passing the disciplines, methodologies, and voices that have historically been marginalized within academic discourses. Furthermore, due to the increasing complexities driven by the evolving and sharply increased usage of digital technologies, it presents an important and timely challenge for technology and surveillance studies to reconsider and scrutinize the contemporary understanding of biopolitics; what it means to live and die in the contemporary world. Therefore, this paper reviews seminal works on biopolitics and surveillance studies to explore alternative theories that can account for the experiences of women and gender-nonconforming individuals in digital spaces, and proposes three conceptual frameworks for analysis: visuality, borders, and privacy. I argue that even in the digital realm in which individual identities and subjectivities are abstracted to data, physical bodies do not leave the criminological and surveillance apparatus; in fact, the bodies continue to hold significance as a source of knowledge, object of discipline and control, and the predictor of future. Furthermore, this paper draws upon decolonial, feminist, and Queer theories to illustrate how victim/offender dichotomy is significantly blurred for women and Queer populations. This blurring of identities is particularly evident in spaces where specific modes of governance are constantly enforced, in which various forms of surveillance technologies and online spaces continue to produce and reinforce knowledge based on specific and dominant perspectives, thereby continuing to function as means of social exclusion. In conclusion, this paper argues that there is an inherent power imbalance in mainstream discourses on surveillance and technology studies, and advocates for the embracing of diverse critical perspectives and alternative sociocultural forms of analyses and highlights the importance of embracing diverse critical perspectives and considering other sociocultural forms for analysis for the discipline to meaningfully progress.

This paper will be presented at the following session: