Plenary Session 2 was held on Tuesday 14 July from 11:00 to 12:30. The panel gathered David Lyon, from Queen’s University, Ontario and Carly Nyst from Privacy International, and the discussion on Surveillance and Resistance was chaired by Chris Paterson, from the University of Leeds.
The session began with the awarding of the IAMCR prize in memory of Stuart Hall to Faith Kibere.
A video recording of the session in its original language is available below.
David Lyon and Carly Nyst: Surveillance and Resistance
Abstract: Edward Snowden revealed a US and UK dominated surveillance apparatus far surpassing the popular imagination, inspiring debates over privacy around the world. Beyond state surveillance, digital communica- tions are constantly monitored, stored and analyzed by an almost equally covert web of corporate surveil- lance and data accumulation. Revelations of international communication processes that are unknowable through their secrecy, and unreformable through their embrace of secret justifications, require scholars to reconsider the possibility of reform and to engage with new ethical and political questions. Is our ability to resist undemocratic control of communication the ultimate test of Hegemony or Resistance? This plenary surveys the burgeoning research into surveillance and describes the mobilization of resistance by civil society.
David Lyon is Director, Surveillance Studies Centre, Queen’s Research Chair in Surveillance Studies, Professor of Sociology and Professor of Law at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He is also a husband, father and grandfather. From 2008-2010 he held a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council. In 2007 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Sociological Association, Communication and Information Technology Section; in 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; in 2012 he received an Outstanding Contribution Award from the Canadian Sociological Association and in 2013 he was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences, UK. He contributes to Surveillance Studies, Social Theory and Sociology of Religion and has directed a number of large-scale multi-disciplinary research projects since 1996, totalling more than $5 million, mainly from SSHRC. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised mainly in Bristol, England, he completed his Social Science and History education in Bradford, Yorkshire (BSc Soc Sci, PhD).
He has authored or edited 28 books and published many articles. The books have been translated into 16 languages and articles more. In 2015 Surveillance after Snowden will appear. In 2014 Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada / Vivre à nu: la surveillance au Canada (ed. Lyon et al) was published. Liquid Surveillance, co-authored with Zygmunt Bauman, came out in 2013. Current book-writing projects include The Culture of Surveillance. Lyon is on the international editorial boards of a number of journals, is a North American editor of Surveillance and Society and Associate Editor of The Information Society.
Carly Nyst is the Legal Director of Privacy International, a London-based NGO dedicated to fightingunlawful surveillance and promoting the right to privacy around the world. Carly directs PrivacyInternational’s public interest litigation and leads the organisation’s advocacy in regional and internationalhuman rights mechanisms, where Privacy International advocates for stronger protections for privacy andpersonal data. Carly is an Australian-qualified human rights lawyer, and was previously the Legal Adviserto the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, and Visiting Scholar atthe Colombia Law School’s Human Rights Institute.