Monica M. Brannon PhD candidate, The New School for Social Research Expected Completion: May 2013
Curriculum Vitae (PDF) Dissertation title: “From Cold War to Commercialization: The Technopolitics of Satellite Imagery”
Areas of expertise: Sociology of Science and Technology, Cultural Sociology, Social Theory, Historical Sociology
Profile:Monica M. Brannon is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the New School for Social Research. Her current research traces satellite imaging technology through its historical transition from a Cold War military technology through commercialization to its contemporary use by the public. Her interests broadly concern technological landscapes, governance of technology, and the technopolitics of visuality. She has written articles on neoliberal technology, the standardization of spaces, and democratic transparency.
Dissertation abstract: My dissertation is a socio-historical investigation of satellite imaging technology from its development for Cold War military reconnaissance through its contemporary commercial and public use. Designed through historical relationships between the state and industry, my research argues that contemporary satellite imaging technology is constructed through neoliberal ideology as an extension of state logistical power. Specifically, claims that it contributes to democratic transparency are attributed to corporations, and operate alongside a discourse of risk that legitimates securitization through new forms of surveillance. This is constituted within a new political economy of ‘big data’ in which technologies are used to reduce social practices to comparable data forms linked to location, resulting in a standardized spatial logic that erases difference and complexity. I argue that rather than increasing transparency, such data visualizations presented as true representations of reality have normalized a constructed visual subjectivity where an overhead mechanical objectivity is privileged over the human experience on the ground, and social practices are traced as data exchanges.
Teaching experience:The Sociological Imagination, Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts, 2010, 2012
Elements of Sociology, City University of New York, 2009-2012
The Emerging Global Society, City University of New York, 2010
Power, Knowledge, Vision, The New School, Teaching Assistant, 2012
Social Thought: Design, Self, Society, Parsons New School for Design, Teaching Assistant, 2008-2012
Rethinking Sustainable Design, The New School, 2011-2012
Writing samples:“
Data Eye in the Sky: Satellite Imagery as a Neoliberal Optic” Under Review
“
Standardizing Spaces: Satellite Images and the Quantifying of the Visual,” Under Review
Contact information:Monica Brannon
The New School for Social Research
Department of Sociology
6 East 16th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 10003
Email: Branm789@newschool.edu
