The Visual Availability and Local Organisation of Public Surveillance Systems: The Promotion of Social Order in Public Spaces

The empirical focus of the research reported in this paper is the recent rapid growth in public surveillance systems. It is now commonplace in Britain for certain "public" spaces to have video surveillance and for some stretches of public highways to have "Gatso" speed cameras located on them. The visual availability of items of material culture such as surveillance systems is introduced as an analytical organising principal for delineating the study of objects within the "seen" world. It is argued that we inhabit a palpable material environment of objects which has consequences for and impinges upon aspects of our practical decision making.