ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the problem of identity, the way that a particular idea of how identity works, what it is, and what its vulnerabilities are, has become dominant at a particular moment in history. Identity is represented as a series of institutional reputations mediated through specific types of personal information disclosed to the formal institutions of structured society. At issue is the fundamental contestation between an attributive, surveillant understanding of identity and a sociological or individual creation or determination of identity. The book engages with UK identity cards as part of the politics of surveillance and identity, but it is not restricted to them. It demonstrates the importance of discourse and language to understanding surveillance, including an engagement with existing work on the representation of surveillance in cultural products, and an expansion of the surveillant assemblage model to include a linguistic dimension.
