sousveillance means the recording of an activity from the perspective of participant in the activity. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
sousveillance is pronounced /suːˈveɪləns/.
Why “sousveillance” is a great word
SOUSVEILLANCE — [Noun] The practice of monitoring a more powerful entity from the perspective of a participant or subordinate, a conscious inversion of the hierarchical gaze. Coined by Steve Mann (c. 2002) from French sous ("under") + -veillance (from surveillance, from veiller "to watch"), thus "watching from below," in deliberate contrast to surveillance (from sur "over"). Unlike surveillance (which gazes down from the institutional tower) or countersurveillance (which seeks merely to hide from the gaze), sousveillance is the deliberate, participatory act of turning the lens upward. It is the smartphone held aloft to film a police badge, the bodycam on the factory floor facing the foreman's office, and the citizen archivist documenting the crumbling façade of civic power—a quiet insistence that the tools of observation are not the sole property of authority, and that the watchers, too, must be seen.
noun
- The recording of an activity from the perspective of participant in the activity.“No, you’re not always “the product” on social media; sometimes you’re the raw material. Or the employee. Welcome to “sousveillance capitalism.” […] But you see the flow of capital here: viral sousveillance proliferating in an attention economy that benefits large tech firms, further exploited by traditional advertisers as “relatable” content.”
- Countersurveillance, inverse surveillance.“This paper describes using wearable computing devices to perform "sousveillance" (inverse surveillance) as a counter to organizational surveillance.”
- Veillance by the masses, of the dominant entities.