Configuring Spaces: Deploying Organisation

Despite the wide-spread deployment of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) throughout most major cities Western Europe, and the importance of surveillance to contemporary debates within the social sci­ences, there remains relatively little detailed research concerned with the ways in which these technologies are used to oversee and manage complex spatial environments. In this paper, we examine how personnel in the operation centres of an unban transport system, or metro, use a range of tools and technologies to identify problems and events and implement a coordinated response. We consider how personnel configure views of the space to make sense of and interpret the conduct of the travelling public in organisationally relevant ways. We examine how they shape the ways in which both passengers and staff see and respond to each others' actions and the spatial environment. In addressing how personnel constitute the sense and significance of the scenes, we reflect on the development of information systems that are designed to scrutinise video images and automatically detect problems and events.