Surveillance as Spatial Injustice: The Case of Iran

Akbari. A

Abstract

The concept of spatial justice appears in a range of disciplines from urban studies and city planning to development and environmental studies. In the field of geography, the theorisation of spatial justice has been mainly rooted in Marxist urban studies. This thread of thought underlines the relationship between capitalism and the production and organisation of space. This dissertation offers a theoretical revision of spatial justice in a multidisciplinary approach integrating technology studies, law, philosophy, politics and gender studies into its viewpoint. Firstly, the research uses Actor-Network-Theory and its theorisation of fluid network spaces to reflect on the mutual constitution of local/global, physical/virtual, and social/temporal/spatial. It also employs the concept of ontological politics to portray the epistemological importance of the ways space and materiality are interpreted. Secondly, the project problematises the established notions of distributive justice and grounds its understanding of justice in theories of abnormal justice, and politics of difference. Building on these revisions of space and justice, the dissertation presents a new intersectional framework of spatial justice based on the normative principle of parity of participation incorporating social, political, and economic aspects. Through two case studies of surveillance in physical and cyber spaces, the research project demonstrates how surveillance as spatial injustice curtails, limits and disrupts participation in cyber, urban and physical spaces. The first case study discusses using footage from traffic control cameras against female drivers with improper veiling in Iran. It examines the interrelations between policing of women’s clothing and their position in the virtual space of datasets, both as spatial injustices. The mutual constitution of physical and virtual is also explored through a thematic analysis of social media of two resistance campaigns against compulsory hijab depicting a continuum of spatial justice between the physical and cyber spaces. The second case study applies the developed spatial justice framework to the cyber space through a detailed review of the regimes of internet governance, cyber censorship and surveillance in Iran. The paper highlights the shortcomings of the dominant privacy discourse and considers cyber surveillance as spatial injustice. Finally, resistance against spatial injustice is scrutinised in a comparative study of platform surveillance in Iran and Russia against the messaging application Telegram. The paper describes physical-virtual linkages manifested in resistance assemblages against restrictions on access and usage of the platform. In addition to its objectives to develop a framework of spatial justice in virtual and physical spaces, this dissertation is also an effort towards new geographical imaginations that act as epistemological openings to rethink universal narratives based on limited lived experiences in Western countries with liberal democratic political systems. Consequently, this research contends that the regimes of surveillance in the countries of the global South are not exceptional cases and debates the homogenised theorisation of space and surveillance that leaves many realities outside its narrative. Such epistemological reconsiderations not only reflect on our role as researchers but also facilitate new conceptualisations of digital political geography that hold justice vital to their geographical imaginations.