Taubman College faculty member Martin Murray has been awarded the 2024 U-M Press Book Award for The Infrastructures of Security: Technologies of Risk Management in Johannesburg (University of Michigan Press, 2022). 

Murray’s book, published in 2022, was selected to receive the $1,500 award for adding to the prestige and distinction of the U-M Press List. Murray, a professor of urban and regional planning, is also a member of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, where he researches the trajectory of global urbanism with a focus on developing nations. 

In his book, Murray explores the South African government’s shift from human-based private policing to an increasing reliance on technology to respond to crime, particularly in Johannesburg. This includes the widespread use of video cameras, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automated systems, effectively replacing human watchers with machine watchers. The aggregate effect of such steps is to determine who is, and isn’t, allowed to be in public spaces — essentially another way to continue segregation, the book argues.

Murray has written extensively on urban development in South Africa, with a focus on Johannesburg. His previous trilogy of books on the subject, beginning with Taming the Disorderly City (Cornell University Press, 2008) and ending with Panic City: Crime and the Fear Industries in Johannesburg (Stanford University Press, 2020), examine city planning in Johannesburg and issues relating to urban wealth inequality and public policing. In addition to his books, Murray has written for various professional journals, including the Journal of Southern African Studies and International Sociology.

Established in 1965 by former U-M President Harlan Hatcher, the University of Michigan Press Book Award is given annually to a member of the U-M teaching or research community for exceptional work in a book published by the U-M Press.