Public health STI/HIV surveillance: Exploring the society of control

Abstract

While Michel Foucault asserted that the sovereign style of rule had disappeared, instead replaced by a disciplinary society (wherein individuals were trained/domesticated in a variety of social institutions), years later, Gilles Deleuze recounted how this social structure had again changed. Within this new system, which Deleuze labelled the society of control, social networks have become so densely intertwined that it no longer matters whether or not someone is disciplined in accordance with social rules because now they are entrapped within a web that would more often than not ensure that socially appropriate trajectories are maintained. Using Deleuze’s framework about the society of control, in this paper, we explore the current public health STI/HIV surveillance system. The outcome of this exploration is the suggestion that the system is, in fact, an example of a densely intertwined (rhizomatic) control society, and that it is maintained through the desires of the people.