(Un)Seeing as Care or Control: The Collection of Race-Identified COVID-19 Data

Abstract

The over-surveillance of racialized or colonized groups for the purposes of control is a well-documented issue. At the same time, there tends to be an under-monitoring of these same groups in cases where such surveillance by state or governmental actors could have implications for care outcomes through the safeguarding of public health provisions. This article draws attention to calls in Canada, particularly by black communities, for the collection of race-identified COVID-19 patient data. The collection of such race-identified data has been deemed by proponents as necessary for a more thorough understanding of and equitable policy response to the pandemic. While these calls mean making an already over-surveilled population more visible to states and governments, they also represent an exercise of agency by members of oppressed groups in negotiating how and when they should be visible. Such calls for race-identified data thus unsettle the increasingly “negative” understanding of surveillance and highlight how the care potential of surveillance cannot be dismissed even if surveillance systems are simultaneously dangerous.