Evaluation of classification practice in modern period surveillance phenomenon and its effects on social life: Eski̇şehi̇r as an example

It is seen that there is an increasing number of surveillance tools in order to follow, organize and manage the mobile and complex structure of modern period. It is possible to find many types of surveillance tools which develop with technological innovations. On the one hand, these tools collect data/information/knowledge from the individuals in different ways, on the other hand they categorize them systematically and make them ready to use. That the surveillance tools become cheaper, smaller and available for remote management makes supervision attractive to reach the information of the society. At the same time, however, surveillance causes some problems as it gets less transparent and its limits become more ambiguous. In general, beside justifying the prevalence of surveillance, safety concerns and the search of order prevent a critical point of view from being brought forward. The phenomenon of 'surveillance' is evaluated only within the frame of 'safety, surveillance, order and discipline' and it is ignored that it plays a major role on helping different socio-economic groups take part in social life. In order to show how this situation is perceived by society, data from different socio-economic parts of society has been evaluated within the scope of classification practice of surveillance. In this sense, the aim of the fieldwork carried out in Eskisehir is to understand what the participants think about surveillance, evaluate the awareness and find out the considerations of surveillance about the categorization act. At the end of the study, it has been found out that there is a relation between socio-economic condition, perception of safety and surveillance requests. Key words: Surveillance, safety, risk, panopticon, ban-opticon, classification