Watching the watchers: A visual sociology essay on control, security and surveillance at olympic women's soccer in Glasgow

Abstract

This paper presents an essay based on photographs, grounded in visual sociology, which documents and discusses the security arrangements in place for the first day of Women's Olympic Soccer at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland. Drawing on images of security arrangements, it considers how control of spectator behaviour, security and surveillance was laminated onto typical practices associated with football matches, but augmented because of the association with the Olympic Games. © The author(s), 2014.