Bruce Arnold (University of Canberra) has posted Masks Against Panopticism? Enabling and Contesting Social Change Through Anonymous Engagement (Research Handbook On Law, Movements And Social Change (Edward Elgar) edited by Boutcher, Shdaimah & Yarbrough, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This chapter offers a view of social movements, individual agency and the state through the lens of masks. It begins by identifying theorisation for making sense of that lens. It then conceptualises masks as a matter of legibility, in essence the symbolic and practical supersession of an individual identity by a collective identity. That supersession might empower social movements but is mirrored by the erasure of individual identity and thus accountability when law enforcement and paramilitary entities engage in masking. The chapter next discusses contemporary instances of masking in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and the United States, with a particular emphasis on contestation regarding use of biometric systems in public places. Before offering conclusions about law, agency and obfuscation it highlights tensions in conceptualisation of social movements. It notes that the use of masks has not been restricted to groups on the ‘right side of history’ and liberal democratic states have on occasion legitimately restricted masks rather than merely the activity that is enabled by that masking.