Challenge of Surveillance Structures and a Redefinition of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in Call me Ziba

Foucault has argued that overt surveillance such as surveillance cameras or government agencies are not the only forms of surveillance. Rather, it is deeply embedded in social institutions and practices that form behavior and perpetuate power imbalances. He elaborates how panopticism, as a discipline mechanism, works by creating a sense of constant visibility and potential surveillance, encouraging individuals to regulate their behavior. Foucauldian surveillance structures are not limited to physical surveillance. They include bureaucratic procedures, identification techniques, and categorization systems. These mechanisms allow social control, normalization, and the exercise of power by shaping and directing individual behavior, choices, and identity. This study focusd on surveillance culture and its relation with the notion of family in young adult literature through the perspectives of Lyon and Falangan to discuss how surveillance culture affects young adults’ identity and their status of citizenship. To this end, Call me Ziba (2015), an acclaimed novel by Iranian author, Farhad Hasanzadeh, was examined. This study used descriptive-textual analysis to discuss the notions of “gaze”, “participatory surveillance”, and “lateral surveillance” to elaborate on their effects on young adults’ perception of the self, the Other, and moral values drawn from them. It has been argued that along with the emergence of post-humanism, young adult literature has adopted a different mission of the classic, didactic version. In other words, despite the classic version which did its best to nurture docile young adults in whom the social norms are naturalized and inculcated, the contemporary version tries to represent the confrontation of revolutionary young adults with disciplinary culture and to reveal the depth of such discursive control in people’s lives. The outcome is the redefinition of notions of the Self and the Other as well as moral principles; the issues which are the prerequisites for civil life in the current world.