The New Politics of Visibility

Not only does visibility matter to politics, but it is increasingly becoming an intrinsic constituent element and a crucial asset to it. Accordingly, the challenge to the social science becomes that of understanding how the new institutional, urban and technological settings are reshaping the organisation of visible. This book brings together a team of distinguished scholars and researchers interested in employing, exploring and critiquing the analytical category and the practical stakes of visibility. Ranging from urban public space to the new media and social media platforms, a vast terrain of inquiry is addressed here by joining together original theoretical elaboration and careful empirical studies. The result is a thoroughly interdisciplinary endeavour, conducted with passion and insight. The New Politics of Visibility includes nine original chapters specifically commissioned for this collection. Contributions are interdisciplinary and address an array of topical areas in the newly emerging modes of governance and the novel social formations coming into existence. The transformations of urban space and the working of the new media form a core concern recurring through many of the essays, but is by no means the sole topic, as other essays address the politics of visibility in crucial cultural spheres including gender relations and professional life. Audience will be academics, researchers, graduate and postgraduate students