‘Care of the Self’ and Discipline in Smart Cities

Abstract

What is the meaning of the ‘care of the self’ in Sensor Societies such as Singapore, where discipline and control seem to come first? Assessing sensoring and behaviour control in Smart Cities, Michel Foucault’s pivotal work on surveillance and power is still highly relevant. Applying this work on surveillance studies also needs to take into consideration Foucault’s later work on the care of the self, as well as revisit his work on power. This amounts to a framework of surveillance pulled apart and inside-out: from top-down hierarchical surveillance to lateral surveillance among people, and even to self-surveillance. Interwoven with this theoretical development is a reportage about the experience of walking the streets of Singapore with an eye to emerging forms of self-care in this situation of ubiquitous surveillance.