Surveillance,Spying and Disciplining the University: Deployment of State Security Agents on Campus in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article examines the deployment of government spies and state security agents on a university campus in Zimbabwe and the implications this has on knowledge production at the university. The campus is presented as a socio-political space in which everyday political struggles are fought. I argue that surveillance is an intractable part of the rhythms of everyday life on campus, and a very specific form of ‘bio-power’, ‘biopolitics’ and violence meant to discipline students and lecturers, as well as the ways in which knowledge is produced and sedimented. Habitualisation of surveillance and fear of surveillance generate Foucauldian ‘panopticon’: producing ‘self-censorship’ on campus.