While a large body of research has documented and theorized digital surveillance practices in various political contexts, little has been done to investigate the growing trend of military-driven digital surveillance practices in semi-authoritarian regimes. In this article, I use the case of the surveillance practices of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to argue that scholarship needs to (re)evaluate this emerging trend. The article has three aims: first, it explores military-driven surveillance capabilities, the circulation of such capabilities and the surveillance tactics emerging in the semi-authoritarian context of Zimbabwe. Second, it examines the interface of factionalism and politics within the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and how this influences quotidian military-driven digital surveillance practices.
The militarization of digital surveillance in post-coup Zimbabwe:‘Just don’t tell them what we do’
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