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David Lyon (ed.), Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond.

Article Excerpt
DAVID LYON (ed.), Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing, 2006, xiii+ 336 p., Index.

Within the field of surveillance studies, Michel Foucault's panopticon metaphor has prevailed as a conceptual exemplar for understanding modern forms of social regulation. Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond draws critically upon the question of its relevance in a postpanoptic world. Readers are thus compelled to contemplate the possibility that the panopticon might have run its course as a useful explanatory frame, particularly in light of the complex conditions of contemporary surveillance practices. Indeed, David Lyon's introductory chapter conveys atone of ambivalence in the field around this question, noting that while the panopticon is a "rich and multifaceted concept," surveillance theorists might need to move beyond its conceptual boundaries in order to make space for new ways of thinking around the manifold functions and implications of surveillance mechanisms (4). Scholars in the field are provided here with a useful entry point for debate around this question.

What follows is a solid and instructive collection that draws upon several core themes in...

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