Content Details | NUML Online Research Repository

Title INTERROGATING ANAESTHETICS, AFFIRMING SOUSVEILLANCE: A STUDY OF THE SELECTED CYBERPUNK DYSTOPIAN FICTION

Author(s) Rahima Binte Kamran

Abstract This study seeks to examine Samit Basu’s Chosen Spirits (2020) and David Brin’s Earth (1990). It seeks to investigate how the transformative power of AI goes beyond mere technological innovation by numbing society’s collective awareness. When technology floods our senses, we live our lives under a totalitarian regime of machines and AI. In order to analyse my primary texts, I employ Susan Buck-Morss’s concept of “Anaesthetics” and Steve Mann’s idea of “Sousveillance”, further elaborated by Kelly Ross in her essay “Watching from Below: Racialized Surveillance and Vulnerable Sousveillance”. “Sousveillance'' is a form of inverse surveillance in which individuals or groups use technology and AI to regain control over their representation and information. This alters the power dynamics of surveillance practices. “Anaesthetics”, according to Morss, refers to the numbing or desensitising effects caused by pervasive technological advancements. The research seeks to investigate how “sousveillance” acts as a counterbalance to “anaesthetics'' and provides means for individuals to exert agency, challenge power dynamics, and foster transparency. I use Catherine Belsey’s model of Textual Analysis as a research method in order to closely analyse the interplay of “anaesthetics'' and “sousveillance” in the selected texts. This study finds that technological and AI-driven systems function as anaesthetic mechanisms. It also finds that constant surveillance and information overload foster emotional detachment, producing passive conformity within dystopian societies. At the same time, sousveillance emerges as a counterforce, enabling ordinary citizens to document injustices, reclaim agency and consciously use technology. Resistance in these narratives does not manifest through large-scale revolutions but through subtle, everyday acts of observation and subversion. This research contributes to the production of knowledge by enhancing the scholarly understanding of how digital dominion is contested and negotiated, and how the selected fictional works echo the enduring human pursuit of autonomy in the midst of digital surveillance.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2025-08-19

Subject

Publisher

Contributor(s)

Format

Identifier

Source

Relation

Coverage

Rights