The Dronification of State Violence

Shaw, Ian; Akhter, Majed

doi:10.1080/14672715.2014.898452

Cited by 75 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…As the Drone Papers (Scahill et al ) make clear, the capacity to distinguish between different legal figures in these battlespaces is increasingly dependent on data gathered from mobile phones, emails, social media, and video feeds. Collected by an array of government agencies (and corporate actors), this vast amount of digitized data is subjected to numerous algorithms (González ; McQuillan ), which are then “stored in electronic targeting folders” (Shaw and Akhter ). By analyzing associations and interactions within the collected digital data, the algorithms produce maps depicting relationships among people, places and things in order to develop a so‐called “pattern of life” that is considered co‐extensive with the life of a terrorist (Dillon and Reid ).…”

Section: Civilian Liminalitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Perugini

Gordon

2017

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This paper interrogates the relationship among visibility, distinction, international humanitarian law and ethics in contemporary theatres of violence. After introducing the notions of “civilianization of armed conflict” and “battlespaces”, we briefly discuss the evisceration of one of international humanitarian law's axiomatic figures: the civilian. We show how liberal militaries have created an apparatus of distinction that expands that which is perceptible by subjecting big data to algorithmic analysis, combining the traditional humanist lens with a post‐humanist one. The apparatus functions before, during, and after the fray not only as an operational technology that directs the fighting or as a discursive mechanism responsible for producing the legal and ethical interpretation of hostilities, but also as a force that produces liminal subjects. Focusing on two legal figures—“enemies killed in action” and “human shields”—we show how the apparatus helps justify killing civilians and targeting civilian spaces during war.

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Section: Civilian Liminalitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Perugini

Gordon

2017

Antipode

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“…Elsewhere, developments including iRobotÕs Ômy real baby' doll and the proliferation of robotic toys, musical robots that can accompany singers during performances, the Honda robot ASIMO that can recognize human faces as well as respond to simply voice commands, and the speaking sex dolls produced by the American RealDoll company have stimulated much debate about the ethics of human-robot interaction and about the borders between human and non-human bodies. Perhaps most controversially, the expanded use of drones and other robots in surveillance and conflict has raised all manner of questions about responsibility and ethics in warfare (Shaw and Akhter, 2014). Commodification processes have also highlighted the significance of embodied subjects, parts and processes, and constitute the fifth factor to have encouraged academic interest in the body.…”

Section: The Rise Of the Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of Body Studies and the Embodiment of Society: A Review of the Field

Shilling

2016

HHSS

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ABSTRACT:During the last few decades there has been a pronounced Ôturn to the bodyÕ within sociology and social thought. Exploring the background to and the parameters of this development, this paper explores how this focus on embodiment has been used to develop new perspectives within social and cultural analysis, and can be assessed as an essential means of avoiding the Cartesian bias within much Western thought. Revisiting sociologyÕs heritage, it then identifies important resources for this project within classical writings, before analyzing why the body has become such a contested phenomenon within social analysis and society. As developments in science, medicine and technology have made the body increasingly malleable, so too have they made it subject to debates and disagreements about what is normal, desirable and even sacred about the physical identities and capacities of embodied subjects.

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“…This exerts an inexorable push towards the further technologization of security. As the sheer volume of surplus humanity increases, the state is turning towards automated systems that can manage huge volumes of individual data (Amoore, 2009;Shaw and Akhter, 2014). This constructs a technological grammar in which individuals are converted into what Deleuze (1992) called dividuals: digital codes constituted by email, phone, and financial records, which are passed between the policing assemblages of the control society.…”

Section: Manhuntingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This, in turn, removes human administrators from the loop. In other words, a quantitative rise in surplus populations is facilitating a qualitative change in the biopolitical systems deployed by the state to manage them (Shaw and Akhter, 2014). The passage from a (Keynesian) welfare state to a (neoliberal) security state (Hallsworth and Lea, 2011) has created more capital-intensive forms of warfare and policing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper is driven by the intersection -or collision -of a growing number of surplus populations across the world and the contemporary "dronification of state violence" (Shaw and Akhter, 2014). While drones are now routinely used as military technologies in the so-called peripheral spaces of the planet -Pakistan's tribal areas, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and the occupied Palestinian territories -the urbanized, capital-intensive metropolises of the Global North are increasingly becoming targets of drone surveillance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Urbanization of drone warfare: policing surplus populations in the dronepolis

Shaw

2016

Geogr. Helv.

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Abstract. This paper explores the urbanization of drone warfare and the securitization of the "surplus population". Defined as a bloc of humanity rendered as structurally unnecessary to a capital-intensive economy, the surplus population is an emerging target for the post-welfare security state. If we now live in an age of a permanent conflict with uncertain geographies, then it is at least partly fueled by this endemic crisis at the heart of the capitalist world system. Of key significance is the contradictory nature of the surplus population. The "security threat" generated by replacing masses of workers with nonhumans is increasingly managed by policing humans with robots, drones, and other apparatuses. In other words, the surplus population is both the outcome and target of contemporary capitalist technics. The emerging "dronification of state violence" across a post-9/11 battlespace has seen police drones deployed to the urban spaces of cities in Europe and North America. The drone, with its ability to swarm in the streets of densely packed urban environments, crystallizes a more intimate and invasive form of state power. The project of an atmospheric, dronified form of policing not only embodies the technologization of state security but also entrenches the logic of a permanent, urbanized manhunt. The paper concludes by discussing the rise of the dronepolis: the city of the drone.

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The Dronification of State Violence

Cited by 75 publications

References 11 publications

Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

Distinction and the Ethics of Violence: On the Legal Construction of Liminal Subjects and Spaces

The Rise of Body Studies and the Embodiment of Society: A Review of the Field

The Urbanization of drone warfare: policing surplus populations in the dronepolis

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