Invisibility, appropriation, subversion: British Army observation posts at the Shankill Falls divide, 1972

All four case studies are institutional buildings that were appropriated by the British Army: a public housing project, a police station, a hospital, and a former linen mill. Through ethnographic interviews and archive research, I reconstruct speculative architectural drawings of each observation post. I consider how these observation posts affected surrounding physical, spatial and social structures.

I also identify strategies of resistance in the surrounding public spaces in response to these fixed architectures of visual control. I reveal how paramilitaries and military agents alike deployed subversive tactics to remain invisible, while the visibility of civilians increased. A series of extracts from the Commanders Diary reveals a shift towards saturation surveillance, in which local people became highly visible transparent surveillant subjects.<br><i><br>Thesis embargoed until 31 July 2027</i>.