Home
Research on hospitals
Surveillance and the Dossier
Cristina Plamadeala and Özgün Erdener Topak, eds
Record Keeping, Vulnerability, and Reputational Politics
A Timely Investigation into Bureaucratic Surveillance
This interdisciplinary collection investigates the role of dossier-based surveillance in society, exploring how these documentary practices serve as key bureaucratic techniques linked to violence, reputational harm, and human rights violations across different regimes and historical periods.
The book establishes dossier creation as the foundational practice of all bureaucracies, despite significant differences in how various systems have weaponized this technique of power. Through comprehensive analysis, it reveals the universal nature of surveillance documentation while exposing its particular dangers.
The Evolution of Surveillance Documentation
Surveillance and the Dossier delves into how dossiers, both paper-based and digital, have been systematically used by governments throughout history and in contemporary times to inflict various forms of violence upon the public. These forms of violence extend beyond the physical to encompass psychological trauma and reputational destruction.
The authors demonstrate that surveillance documentation represents far more than mere record-keeping—it constitutes a fundamental mechanism through which state power operates, categorizes, and ultimately controls populations. This bureaucratic apparatus becomes a weapon that can be deployed with devastating precision against individuals and communities.
Forms of Violence Through Documentation
Psychological Violence
The constant awareness of being monitored and documented creates lasting psychological trauma, fostering self-censorship and social withdrawal among surveilled populations.
Physical Violence
Dossiers serve as justification and targeting mechanisms for direct physical harm, imprisonment, and other forms of bodily violence against individuals.
Reputational Violence
Documentation systems systematically destroy personal and professional reputations, creating long-lasting social stigma and economic disadvantage.
Understanding State Violence Through Surveillance
Documentation
Systematic collection and organization of personal information creates comprehensive profiles of individuals and communities.
Targeting
Dossier information enables precise identification and selection of individuals for various forms of state intervention.
Violence
The documented information becomes justification and mechanism for inflicting psychological, physical, and reputational harm.
Deeply relevant and imperative, this work seeks to understand the critical links between the infliction of state violence and surveillance practices, revealing patterns that transcend specific historical contexts or political systems.
A Platform for Understanding Surveillance Societies
Past and Present Convergence
This book demonstrates that dossiers serve as a valuable platform for understanding both the historical development and contemporary manifestations of surveillance societies across different governments and countries. The research reveals troubling continuities between past and present practices.
By examining how surveillance documentation operates across diverse political systems, the authors provide essential insights for scholars, policymakers, and citizens concerned with protecting human rights and democratic governance in an increasingly surveilled world.

Essential reading for academics, graduate students, and informed readers interested in surveillance studies, human rights, and bureaucratic politics.