2024 Theses Master's

The ‘Rhizomatic’ Effect: Surveillant Assemblages, Migrant Workers, and Informal Labor Economies in New York City

Gonzalez, Idalia

This thesis examines the infrastructural surveillance of public space in New York City, an increasingly “smart” city, as well as perceptions and conceptualizations among vulnerable working migrants who rely on access to public space as their workplace.

Employing Haggerty and Ericson’s concept of the “surveillant assemblage,” and building on Zuboff’s theory of “surveillance capitalism,” this study explores the driving forces behind the digitization and datafication in the city, and underscores the complex realities and paradoxes of these technological initiatives, as well as their implications on everyday life.

In addition, through interviews with five vendors who work primarily in New York City’s public spaces, this study finds that workers are acutely aware of and responsive to “visible” surveillant components. It argues that workers’ subsequent methods of surveillance neutralization constitute a quiet form of “everyday resistance.”

Simultaneously, it finds that workers are not as aware of or concerned with other more invisible forms of surveillance, like smartphone tracking, which does not pose a significant, immediate risk to their work and life. Nevertheless, this thesis argues for a more robust, transparent and comprehensive privacy rights framework in New York City and in similar smart cities around the world.