Thread by @shengokai

Here's the thing, though: all of this depends on the people inflicting the systems upon students viewing students as deserving of the same kinds of privacy and human rights within the educational space as other individuals. That is, it relies on seeing them as human. (1/n)

https://twitter.com/hypervisible/status/1333931799681134595

I say "human," because the way that "student" is used in the deployment of these systems (and in higher ed generally) refers to something disembodied, detached from the context of education, and in need of disciplining into line with the expectations of the university. (2/n)

Now, not all students are viewed the same, and some students are in need of more disciplinary measures to ensure their compliance with the expectations of the institution, but there is the assumption that ALL students are in need of some form of surveillance. (3/n)

I trace this back to the concept of "in loco parentis" in higher ed, where the institution assumes responsibility for the moral and social cultivation of the student in question through transaction with the educational environment that instills moral values and habits. (4/n)

In modernity, "in loco parentis" has been transformed by neo-liberalism from a cultivational philosophy and into a philosophy of management in the mode of "human resources" or an increasingly carceral state as the technologies of policing become common place on campus. (5/n)

All of which results in a "dehumanized" student who needs to be subjected to the disciplinary structures of the institution, including surveillance structures, in order to produce the ideal graduate. Naturally, this process of dehumanization is not consistent across all students.