Sociology and Legal Studies

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Sociology and Legal Studies.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Canadian Border Security: Examining Border Services Officer and Traveller Knowledge Concerning Interaction Narratives and Technologization Within the Windsor Borderland
(University of Waterloo, 2019-07-04) Lalonde, Patrick C.; O'Connor, Daniel
Through contrasting institutional discourses with frontline official and non-official knowledge gleaned from interaction narratives from past social interactions and supplied by border services officers (BSOs) and members of travelling publics circulating at ports of entry in the Windsor, Ontario, Canada borderland, this thesis accomplishes the work of considering border security and mobility governance as an everyday practice (Côté-Boucher, Infantino, and Salter 2014). While previous literature has expertly documented the governmentality of modern borders, its privileging of institutional forms of knowledge means findings are inherently limited in that they ignore subjugated forms of knowledge (Foucault 1972), the role of diverse publics in shaping the field of (in)security, and renders invisible the presence of (in)security in everyday life (Vaughan-Williams and Stevens 2016:43). To this end, this thesis is unique in considering – for the first time – interaction narratives supplied by BSOs and members of travelling publics circulating regularly within a geographically specific borderland. This thesis is also unique in considering how knowledge generated by such narratives potentially challenges institutional discourses supplied by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Lastly, this thesis is also unique in examining how border technologization and digitization potentially influence frontline social interactions between officers and publics, generate additional knowledge concerning the nature of digitized borders, and function to establish a gulf between institutional discourses and localized frontline practices. This thesis employs a multi-method approach, utilizing: 1) a content analysis and discourse analysis of various primary and secondary institutional documents, 2) content and thematic analyses performed on transcripts generated from in-depth, semi-structured interviews performed with 10 BSOs working in the Windsor borderland, and 3) content and thematic analyses performed on transcripts generated from in-depth, semi-structured interviews performed with 30 members of travelling publics, the vast majority of whom resided in the Windsor borderland at the time interviews were conducted. Combined, official and non-official knowledge generated from interaction narratives provided by participants provides several critiques in terms of analyzing institutional knowledge generated by CBSA. Findings generated through interaction narratives indicate: 1) officers have experienced a shift in “lifeworld” (Habermas 1981) alongside shifts in agency mandates toward a neoliberal risk-management model of mobility governance; 2) officers receive very little formal training in terms of frontline interactions; 3) officer training displays a systematic bias toward constructing all interactions as “security moments” designed to fulfill a security mandate, ultimately leaving officers ill-trained in terms of the “facilitation” (CBSA 2018e:8), non-securitized, humanitarian side of border work; 4) despite being couched by CBSA institutional discourses as being professional, courteous, law-abiding, and thorough, much evidence exists to suggest BSOs act in ways differing substantially from this knowledge, including: officers not performing full primary inspections on travellers, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms violations in terms of officers routinely asking travellers about their mobility while outside of Canada, and a variety of negative frontline interactions including: a) aggressive or unnecessary questioning by officers, b) officers presenting a rude or unfriendly demeanor, c) harassment by officers about purchases made abroad, d) officers unfairly or incorrectly applying policies, e) unnecessary examinations, and f) enforcement actions resulting in the seizure of purchased goods; 5) officers are often forced to develop shared ad hoc best practices in terms of social interactions on the frontline, where there is a real danger of BSOs “parroting” the poor practices of just one or two veteran officers; 6) the existence of a substantial gulf between national policy and training modules and the localized and geographically-specific practices occurring at disparate ports of entry across Canada. Findings generated in terms of the technologization of contemporary borders suggest border security and mobility governance practices are best understood as forms of simulation (Baudrillard 1981) and cyborg work (Bogard 1996), whereby digitized subjects (Goriunova 2019) – which are not at all representative of human subjects – are taken as irrefutable copies or “dividuals” (Deleuze 1992) by border officers, and ultimately become the unit of analysis under neoliberal risk-management schemes in making decisions possible and rendering the personal narratives and performativity of embodied subjects (travellers) effectively irrelevant. Despite CBSA institutional documents couching technologization in terms of improving efficiency at the border, augmenting officer decision-making, and enhancing security provision, official and non-official knowledge gleaned from interaction narratives generated from perceptions related to past social interactions serves to provide a serious critique of these discourses. This includes knowledge concerning perceived deficits related to border technologization, including: 1) discussions of data errors causing travel problems (duplicated NEXUS card numbers, mistaken warrants in the CPIC database, false travel histories in customs databases, and so forth); 2) the advertised benefits of the NEXUS trusted traveller program (efficiency crossing borders) as being either non-existent or irrelevant; 3) the use of Automated Border Clearance (ABC) kiosks / Primary Inspection Kiosks (PIKs) at major Canadian international airports as serving to produce superficial and robotic frontline social interactions guided exclusively by computer-generated risk codes; and 4) the apparent negative effects of technologization in terms of eroding the ability of officers to make informed decisions on the basis of anything other than information provided by computerized databases. Combined, findings generated by comparing institutional knowledge with official and non-official interaction narrative knowledge are subsequently considered through the lens of simulation, human and mobility rights, bureaucratic secrecy, and potential policy change. Additionally, slippage between nationalized institutional discourses and localized frontline practices are explained through the lens of neoliberal systems of power and governance. Finally, avenues for future research are discussed in concluding the thesis.
Flying the Flag: A Mixed-Methods Study Examining Policing Subjectivity in a Canadian Auxiliary Police Service
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-30) Sycz, Damian; O'Connor, Daniel
Although studies have explored the recruitment and retention of sworn police officers, the recruitment, retention, and roles of Canadian auxiliary police officers have largely been overlooked. Examining this issue through the lenses of self-determination theory, symbolic representation, and relations between the state and civil society, this research addresses the deficiency in the literature by examining the demographic composition, recruitment, retention, and role of an auxiliary police unit in a police service in Ontario, Canada. This study utilizes a sequential explanatory mixed-methods research design that collects quantitative data using a survey and supports this data with semi-structured interviews. I present two arguments in this dissertation. First, the ideal subjectivity of police volunteers has shifted, along with the state’s monopoly on crime control, from a primary focus on physical attributes, such as toughness and brute strength, to one where police organizations seek subjects with the right attributes to support positive community relations. Second, I argue that the state empowers auxiliary police volunteers to contribute to public safety in this way by fostering interactions along the margin between the state and civil society. This marginal work enables both the enfolding of civil society values and norms into the policing apparatus and the unfolding crime control functions into civil society. Despite being an indispensable resource, volunteerism in the public sector is decreasing, and recruiting and retaining auxiliary police volunteers has become challenging. Researchers should continue to study police auxiliaries due to the vital role they play in determining how police organizations relate to the communities they serve.
Governing the Ban: The Canadian Security Certificate Initiative and management of non-citizen terror threats
(University of Waterloo, 2018-01-02) Speed, Shannon T.; O'Connor, Daniel
Security certificates were designed to act as orders for the immediate detention and expedited deportation of persons deemed to be threats to national security. Legislated during the Cold War when espionage was a heightened threat, the deployment of certificates as a counter-terrorism strategy is complicated by the resistance of persons named as threats to national security (“named persons”), legal counsel, and popular movements. This has resulted in protracted detention and delayed deportation for named persons. The failure of deportation objectives has resulted in a complex governing assemblage, one that enfolds procedures and personnel from various registers. Extended detainment has led to the borrowing of various technologies from the disciplinary apparatus, such as provincial detention centres, federal prisons, and conditional release strategies that make use of sureties. Elements of the legal apparatus are also incorporated: Special advocates are invented to deal with the issues of secrecy surrounding national security process as intelligence is introduced as ‘evidence’ in courts that are tasked with the problem of determining the reasonableness of certificates and associated detention. This blurring of intelligence and evidence risks the establishment of troubling precedent for immigration and criminal proceedings. An examination of the spatial-temporal (chronotopic) dimensions of certificate processes reveals how a state of insecurity can morph into an improvised assemblage combining security and legality. This examination of certificate proceedings provides insight into how non-citizen terrorism threats are managed in Canada and the implications of failing governance operations for justice.
The Securitization and Commodification of the Consumer-Citizen: Biopolitics of the Credit Card Industry
(University of Waterloo, 2018-08-07) Nyyssonen, Katrina; O'Connor, Daniel
This thesis examines the biopolitics of the credit card industry and its governance of consumers through consumer-citizenship obligations and the transformation of consumer data into valuable information commodities. Biometrics and transactional data trails or ‘data doubles’ are used to securitize identity, define responsible citizenship, and to delimit rights and access to valuable social resources. Binding data to consumer-citizens enables the credit card industry to exercise biopower over consumer subpopulations through social sorting based on categories of risk and value. Subpopulations are then both acted upon and sold to third parties as ‘valuable information commodities.’ This thesis analyzes Visa and Mastercard Canadian credit card policies to determine how the consumer-citizenship is constituted and the extent to which Canadian federal legislation (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act enable) enables or constrain credit card companies exercise of biopower over consumer populations. This thesis concludes that credit card companies enact a form of biopolitical governance-at-a-distance through entrepreneurship and responsibilization. Corporate policies enable the aggregation and commodification of personal information, for purposes not explicitly made known to customers, in order to drive economic growth for the credit card industry and its ‘third parties.’

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