Special Issue of ‘Surveillance and Society’ journal

Submission Deadline: August 1, 2017

Publication Date: early 2018

Edited by: Eric Stoddart, University of St Andrews, UK, and Susanne Wigorts Yngevesson, Stockholm School of Theology

This issue of Surveillance & Society is seeking papers and other submissions that examine the interplay between religion and surveillance.

Religious communities are targets, as well as consumers, of surveillance. This may occur as the securitization of religious identity. Cultures of surveillance develop with societies where religion remains a significant player and/or where religious themes continue to influence as part of the broader heritage. Political rhetoric may draw upon concepts of the eye of God, popular culture may appeal to fears and/or reassurances of a divine and omnipresent gaze. Religious traditions also have the potential to contribute to discussions of the ethics of surveillance, whether in the realm of national security, human rights, trust, privacy or human flourishing in general.

This issue seeks to explore the ways in which particular religious communities are subjects of surveillance and invites critical attention to the ways that religious communities deploy surveillance strategies. It aims to scrutinize how religious themes circulate within discourses that attempt to legitimate or resist surveillance. Furthermore, this issue seeks to articulate particular religious and theological insights and perspectives on the contemporary debate around surveillance.

Possible research areas might include (but are not limited to):

• Religions under surveillance
• Religious practice and identity as surveillance
• Religions consuming surveillance
• Religious ethics and surveillance
• Religion and surveillance in films
• Religion and surveillance in novels
• Religion and surveillance in art
• Religion in the political discourses of surveillance

This special issue will be one of the outputs of the AHRC funding of the network during 2016 & 2017.

For more information and submission instructions please see Surveillance and Society website.