Between Surveillance and Sousveillance: Or, Why Campus Police Feel Vulnerable Precisely Because They Gain Power

Abstract

Utilizing historical and ethnographic data, this article explicates a thesis that involves a paradox—campus police feel vulnerable as the “surveyed” precisely because they gain power as the “surveyor.” Toward this end, first, I identify a dramatic change in the status and function of campus police from watchmen to law enforcement professionals in the 1960s-1970s as a key historical context in which this paradox emerged. Then, I ethnographically explore forms this paradox has taken at the level of consciousness-behavior of campus officers. Attention is paid to how digital technologies of the twenty-first century transform campus policing, a process that redefines the relationship between the state and civil society and normalizes “watching” as a basic mechanism of new governance. I consider political and theoretical implications of new governance and the role writing can play in ethnographic studies of police to elucidate it.