Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Surveillance, pastoral power and embodied infrastructures of care among migrant filipinos in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Johnson, Mark

Authors

Mark Johnson



Abstract

Surveillance features routinely in discussions of migration in terms of boundary crossing and border policing; that is, of how states and state-like entities seek to limit and control movement, often at a distance. What is less frequently examined is how migrants who are excluded from care by forms of selective non-surveillance have to rely on their own informal social networks, referred to here as embodied infrastructures, to provide both care and the forms of watching that enable that care. Drawing together Foucault’s (2009) notion of pastoral power and Simone’s (2004) notion of ‘people as infrastructure’, I explore ethnographically the way that surveillance features in and is gendered by migrant Filipino practices of care in Saudi Arabia, an overlooked but vital part of the way that people create ‘platforms for living’, as well as enact social control and normative conformity, in sometimes precarious situations.

Citation

Johnson, M. (2015). Surveillance, pastoral power and embodied infrastructures of care among migrant filipinos in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Surveillance and Society, 13(2), 250-264. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v13i2.5339

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jul 22, 2015
Deposit Date Feb 15, 2023
Publicly Available Date Feb 15, 2023
Journal Surveillance and Society
Print ISSN 1477-7487
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 2
Pages 250-264
DOI https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v13i2.5339
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4201081

Files




You might also like



Downloadable Citations