Saturday, February 23, 2008

While reading the Deleuze article I become interested in the idea that with freedom comes added control and even new dangers. The whole idea of a transformation into a 'society of control' was very intriguing to me and something I'd never thought about before. It makes sense that it's a completely new kind of control: less about physical barriers and confinement. It's a control that exists all around us. People have brought up all kinds of examples. This bit from the Deleuze article grabbed my attention: "...in the crisis of the hospital as environment of enclosure, neighborhood clinics, hospices, and day care could at first express new freedom, but they could particpate as well in mechanisms of control that are equal to the harshest of confinements." (Page 4) I was talking about this with a friend and he mentioned a pretty interesting article he'd come across in another class. It's about 'supervised injection sites', which are clinics set up in some cities in the U.S. and Canada with the goal of making injection drugs safer for drug users in the area. The article talks about how although these sites have valid goals and some positive results, there are many negative aspects too. It describes SISs as "one element of socio-spatial 'exclusion' of marginalised populations" and as "powerful surveillance and discipline sites." According to the article, these sites are used to push drug user populations away from certain areas of the city and make them less visible to the general public. It's an interesting example of something that initially looks like an added freedom and a positive change but is also about control in many ways.

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