I’m back from Brazil now. It was an exhausting time towards the end as Paola and I packed so many visits and interviews into the last few weeks. I still have things to write up here on that, especially on Dave and I cheekily collaring Major Vargas, the Commander of BOPE outside his HQ – resulting in an hour-and-a-half long interview! There are also some others things I want to write about surveillance, community and music and the city. So there will still be some belated reports on research and experiences in Rio over the next couple of weeks in, amongst all the other things.
My PhD student, Fashie has come back from Malaysia just about simultaneously and it turns out that what we have been doing and discovering is remarkably parrallel and comparable. I am very pleased with her work. We’re planning a joint seminar to explore some of the similarities and differences in terms of crime, community and control.
I have an insane schedule over the next few weeks. I have to speak to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on security and individual freedoms on Tuesday, then it will straight on to Brussels the next day for our inaugural ‘Living in Surveillance Societies’ ESF-COST network management meeting. The week after I will be in Glasgow for a special invitational seminar on surveillance in Glasgow and on the island of Jura – I can stay with my sister who lives in Glasgow which will be lovely. After that I am having a few days cycling break before the next SSN/ESRC ‘Everyday Life of Surveillance’ seminar in Edinburgh. Then, the week after, I am supposed to be going to Vienna for a conference of a project in which I am no longer involved but to which I still have some left-over obligations.
By the end of May, I should also know something more about what I am doing and where I will be in the future, both professionally and personally, as the results of tests and applications of various kinds start to filter back. Can’t say more yet, but I hope it’s going to be an exciting couple of months!
ubisurv 