“Verás que um filho teu não foge à luta”: a contravigilância na sociedade em rede e a nova ação conectiva dos movimentos sociais do século XXI

Abstract

In the network society, social relationships - and power relationships - are structured in a multidirectional way, in a horizontal distribution of interactions, where networks compete and cooperate with each other. The network State is only a node in this power play, which, in order to maintain imperial domination, uses institutional and total control and surveillance devices. This change of paradigm also enables the sharing of ideas among social actors, especially social movements, strengthening networks of conter power to refute hegemonic discourses, including through conter surveillance mechanisms. The present research studies the counter surveillance, that is, a shift in the direction of surveillance to transform the object of surveillance into the subject of surveillance, problematizing in wich extent conter surveillance, as an expression of conter power in the network society, may represent an exercise of democracy, especially from the new social movements connective action of the 21st century. For this, the present work is divided into three large blocks: the first one about the intensification of surveillance techniques on individuals and populations; the second on about the actors and processes of conter surveillance emerged essentially because of the reconfiguration of social movements in the 21st century, especially since the Arab Spring; and the third one about the re-signification of the theory of social movements, from new concepts, especially with regard to surveillance and the claim of rights. As for the methodology of approach, the dialectical method is used, because a relational connection is made between the themes through the juxtaposition and contraposition of concepts: from power to counter power, from surveillance to counter surveillance, from old collective action to new connective action. Regarding the methodology of procedure, the monographic method is eminently used, since the object of research is studied in detail, analyzing the social surveillance from a bias of the dominant governmental reason and also from the social movements collective action of the 21st century. To do this, the direct and indirect documentation techniques of research are applied. It is concluded that the new social movements collective (connective) action of the 21st century, mobilized by information and communication technologies, has expanded the counter surveillance against global surveillance engineered by the imperial power networks, in such a way that, if used as a social articulation to challenge hegemonic discourses and change dominant narratives, expresses a counter power in the network society and represents an exercise of democracy, from the reinvention of the public sphere in favor of alternative political projects of a digitally connected multitude.