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‘The Common Gaze: Surveillance and the Common Good’ – new book

Now published – limited introductory offer £20 from the publisher.

“Mutual flourishing” and the “Common Good” are now in common parlance – but how is this negotiated ambition of everyone’s flourishing being shaped by our ‘surveillance culture’ – a culture of collecting and analyzing vast volumes of personal data via social media, web activity, phone apps, and store loyalty cards.

In The Common Gaze, I consider whether this surveillance culture, which so often focuses disproportionately on the already-marginalised or disadvantaged, can be redeemed and restored in line with God’s intentions for human flourishing. Provocative and timely, the book dares to suggest that in contrast to the prevailing sense that surveillance must always be viewed in the negative, in a redeemed state it might in fact play a part in God’s purpose for the world.