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Carceral Convenience
Abstract
Carceral Convenience Umm Tarek's house sits nestled on a hill in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron’s old city. Palestinian neighbors reach it from the footpaths that wind behind the paved streets, skirting around Israeli military checkpoints and settler compounds. Since the start of 2020, Umm Tarek has stayed home most days. Then, the Israeli military installed three large CCTV cameras on the rooftop of her home; they return every few weeks to make sure it is functioning correctly. The military promises the cameras--connected to the blue wolf biometric database-- enable an efficient and more humanitarian occupation. For Palestinians, the proliferation of new surveillance technologies are experienced as another kind of incarceration. This paper draws from 16 months of fieldwork in Palestine/Israel to provide an ethnographic account of new, so-called frictionless surveillance technologies proliferating across the occupied West Bank and worldwide. I draw from extensive interviews with Palestinians living in Hebron and East Jerusalem and Israeli intelligence veterans and military generals responsible for coordinating and carrying out surveillance. While Israeli authorities hold new surveillance technologies decrease interactions between occupation authorities, I demonstrate how frictionless surveillance technologies exacerbate the carceral effects of Israel’s military rule. While scholarship attendant to Israel’s technologized occupation has proliferated in recent years, few scholars have provided extended studies of how specific technologies are designed, deployed, and experienced across the West Bank. This paper demonstrates how biometric technologies, CCTV cameras, and digital surveillance tools require forms of human intervention that intrude on Palestinians' quotidian lives. AI-powered technologies are subject to a technical malfunction and constant upkeep that exacerbate military rule's violence. As these technologies are exported worldwide, honing in on their effects in Hebron demonstrates the dangers investments in such "security solutions" pose to privacy worldwide.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
West Bank
Sub Area
Technology