The Techno-Optics of Safety: Surveillance and Women's Ambivalent Experiences in South Korea's “Smart Safe City”

Abstract

The rise of “scientific security” discourse has spurred the use of optical technologies and data analytics in crime prevention. It has coincided with a shift in smart city narratives, positing these developments as enhancing women's freedom and safety in urban spaces. However, these narratives often overlook the nuanced and embodied experience of safety and women's ambivalent relationship with technology, while framing its use as a binary choice between privacy or safety. While enhanced legibility of the city may help visualize and predict crimes through algorithms, this focus on visual and data-driven methods tends to ignore critical aspects of safety, especially those conditions not directly observable like domestic and gender violence. This paper critically examines the complex relationship between gender and “smart safe cities,” using Seoul, South Korea as a case study. Drawing upon literature on technology and cities, and the history of women in Korea, this paper challenges the assumptions underlying these initiatives that supposedly empower yet over-victimize women. By integrating historical perspective with analysis of new spatial safety techniques, the paper highlights the disjuncture between the prevailing techno-optical regime and the tangible experience of safety, emphasizing a need for more holistic and relational approach to safety.