We cannot talk about surveillance technology—whether it be by the state, corporations, community, or family—without talking about power. A few years ago, a dear friend sent me a link to an illustration. I can’t remember the reason why she shared it, but the text on the graphic stayed with me. It read: I don’t watch my neighbours. I see them.
I think the distinction between being seen and being watched is powerful because it articulates a nuanced, yet enormous dichotomy—one that ultimately boils down to who is granted permission to be perceived as human.
We like to talk about the importance of visibility and representation for folks at the margins. I, myself, often write about feeling seen. There is an ongoing narrative that being visible might lead to being understood; that it will convince others that people are deserving of humanity. But for many, increased visibility does not lead to safety—only heightened surveillance and experiences of violence. We must interrogate how power shapes one’s gaze; how it can transform the act of seeing into the act of watching.
Surveillance uses sophisticated technologies that seemingly allow us to gain access to nature in a way that will provide the truth. Instead, surveillance provides information that is isolated, out of a larger context, and in the service of power. A 24-hour surveillance camera cannot provide embedded, interconnected knowledge. The idea that surveillance is necessary to know or understand nature rests heavily on the colonial notion that humans are separate from and superior to the ecosystems we inhabit. Birding became easier and more enjoyable for me as I learned about where I lived, hiked, and visited. As a part of this practice I learned to bird by ear: identifying species by the calls and songs they make. This also helped me to know where to look for birds based on their sounds: a chickadee would be in the trees, an ovenbird would be on the ground. I developed a landscape literacy that helped me understand the place I lived, my relationship to it and the other beings that were a part of the ecology. I could not have done that with a wildlife camera, I had to do it through developing a relationship to the land, and to the complexities of the many lives that are connected to it. In order to learn with attentiveness, as Kimmerer writes, in order to observe this way, we have to account for an ecology that humans are also a part of. It is settler science that distances humans from the ecosystems we inhabit.
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