SPACES FOR CAPITAL PROTECTION: PANOPTISM AND VIDEOSURVEILLANCE IN TOURISM DESTINATION OF CABO SAN LUCAS, BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR (MEXICO)

Bearing in mind Bentham's Panopticon prison, a concept that Foucault extended into a system where power imposes distinct rules for social conduct, we offer an analysis of the present day panoptism in Cabo San Lucas, an important tourist venue in Northwestern Mexico. We approach the problem from with a consideration of how social space is produced (and used) in this tourist destination, where accumulation by dispossession (of landscape, land, beaches, etc.) results in inequality and polarization, with the social problematic that those conditions foster. Rather than removing the causes of insecurity, panoptical surveillance-seen by power-holders both as a necessity and a solution-turns instead into an instrument of social control, naturalized even by the population subjected to it.