Between Smart Images and Fast Trucks

Digital Surveillance and Obscured Labour in Hyderabad, India

Bibliographic Data

ID2175180
AuthorsPhilippe Messier (0009-0003-4787-7328, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume25
Issue2
Pages152-173
Publication date2024-03-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanberra Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0314-9099 • E-ISSN: 1740-9314
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14442213.2024.2324826
OpenAlexW4392918420
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited44

In Hyderabad, India, the growing information technology (IT) sector relies on ensuring safe and efficient movements of people and objects, and the city government and private actors have embraced the promise of digital surveillance to reach these goals. The new Telangana State, created in 2014, has built a new city-wide network of smart cameras, and at ‘hackathons’ programmers develop new digital tools, often connected to this network, that will technologically ‘solve’ social problems. In this article, I examine the system of CCTV cameras and programmers’ investments in these systems, and explore how migrant Vaddera stonecutters use cellphones to evade patrolling officers monitoring the streets where they carry the granite stones that they cut and load to construct the city’s buildings. Expanding on what Gilbert Simondon calls ‘the margin of indeterminacy’, this article reveals gaps in the digital infrastructure of surveillance-even as its integration and completion combine human and technical elements

Business · Computer security · Construct (python library · Geography · Government (linguistics · Indeterminacy (philosophy · Patrolling · Smart city · State (computer science · Truck · Computer Science · Engineering · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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