Publication

Jeremy Bentham's late eighteenth century concept of the 'panopticon', popularized by Foucault two centuries later, has become a ubiquitous model for thinking about not merely surveillance but self-surveillance in the modern state. Foucault's analysis of the panopticon, and indeed perhaps the panopticon itself, is tied to a particular time and place of state development. What are the implications for this scholarship of different, non-western traditions of state surveillance? An effort is made to answer this questions drawing on a body of beliefs about volcanic hazard from the Sultanate of Yogyakarta in Central Java. It is believed that there is a spirit world inside the crater of Merapi volcano that mirrors the world of humans. By monitoring the volcano, it is thought that insight can be gained into what is happening in the everyday world. These beliefs thus represent a model for monitoring, for surveillance, for self-surveillance. The ways that this both resembles and differs from Bentham's and Foucault's model of the panopticon offers new insights into the cultural and historical dimensions of our current understandings of the state gaze. This analysis will also offer new insights into the applicability of Foucault's work on surveillance and governance in non-western contexts. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.