The global and local politics of surveillance, technology and counterterrorism

The global and local politics of surveillance, technology and counterterrorism

This event brings together scholars and legal advocates working at the intersections of surveillance, technology and counterterrorism across diverse geographic and historical contexts. In recent years, the growth of mass surveillance and data-driven global security has reached unpresented levels, with the multiplication of existing and novel technologies, often accompanied by new legal and information infrastructures, forms of reasoning and pre-emptive security techniques for governing potential terrorist ‘risks’. These developments are irreducibly transnational - involving circuits of capital, travelling experts, collaborations amongst a myriad array of state and non-state actors, and new networks for exchanging and analysing data – but their manifestations are by no means seamless or homogenous across different geographic and political contexts. Moreover, the ways and extent to which they have been resisted and contested varies considerably across contexts. These security practices are also often shrouded in secrecy, which makes political critique and accountability efforts even harder. This event features three speakers: Nikita Sonavane, Gavin Sullivan and Rhys Machold and features insights from their scholarship, legal advocacy and activism carried out across the UK, South Asia, North America and the Middle East. Through a conversational format, the event will open space for a wide-ranging discussion about the shifting natures and political stakes of surveillance and data-driven security today and what can be gained from approaching these matters from a transnational focus, in ways that put data-driven security practices and techniques into question.

Nikita Sonavane is a legal researcher and advocate. She is the co-founder of the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project (CPAProject) a Bhopal based litigation and research intervention focused on building accountability against criminalisation of oppressed caste communities by the Police and the criminal justice system. She is currently a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford working on anti-discrimination law in India. Her writings have been published by the AI Now Institute at New York University, Indian Express, The Hindu and Caravan.

Gavin Sullivan is a Reader at Edinburgh Law School and leads the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project, Infra-Legalities: Global Security Infrastructures, AI and International Law. His research focuses on the politics of global security law and governance, using socio-legal and ethnographic methods to examine data-driven security practices. His first book, (CUP, 2020), won the 2021 ISA International Law and STAIR-ISA Book Awards for research bringing STS into dialogue with global politics. Gavin is on the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and co-directs the Scottish Council on Global Affairs.

Rhys Machold is Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Working from a transnational approach, Rhys’ work focuses on policing, security regimes, racialization and empire. He is author of (Stanford University Press 2024). He is Editor at Critical Studies on Security.

Host or Publisher Rhys Machold