My Book Project
Andean Big Brothers. Unstable Bodies and Technology in the Age of Global Surveillance is an investigation that connects the Peruvian case with broader circuits of science and technology: for example, a long-arch analysis of the Wars of Independence in the 1820s and the Great Depression in the 1930s.
I combine my training in social and technological history to bring a fresh and alternative perspective to surveillance studies. By focusing in the cultural practices involved in the creation, adoption, and resistance to identification technology, Andean Big Brothers provides a vivid account of how ordinary citizens and experts experienced surveillance from opposite sides, and the controversial legacy of this system, that resulted in social fracture, alienation, and unexpected novel forms of political citizenship in the last century in Peru and many other parts of the post-colonial world.
If you want to know more about my global perspective on surveillance, please contact me (jr992@cornell.edu) or take a look to the following essays here, here, and here.
You can also can visit this Pinterest board, a visual digital project on everyday surveillance in the Americas.
Follow Jose Ragas’s board Identification, Surveillance & ID Cards on Pinterest.