The proliferation of peripheries: Militarized drones and the reconfiguration of global space

Abstract

By situating drones in a lineage of colonial technologies of pacification, the critical literature on militarized drones suggests a revised concept of peripheries and global space. This paper engages this literature to argue for a conception of peripheries as spaces of colonial state power at multiple scales. It does so by arguing for a distinction between proliferation to the global periphery and the proliferation of peripheries at multiple scales and across scattered sites. The paper also draws on Gramsci and Fanon to elaborate an internationalist anticolonial position on the defense of territorial sovereignty of states in the global periphery.

Adjudicating infrastructure: Treaties, territories, hydropolitics

“…In contrast to these antipodal positions, this paper advances an approach that understands international law as a specialized terrain of geopolitical struggle. While the formalism and procedures of international law can have the effect of depoliticizing conflict and struggle, international law can also provide a language and an authorized channel to politicize grievance (Akhter, 2019; Mazower, 2013). For example, the principle of downstream vulnerability that animating the Pakistani teams’ strategic interpretation of the IWT is also essential to the defense of many marginalized and vulnerable riparian communities around the world.…”

‘Everyday droning’: Towards a feminist geopolitics of the drone-home

“…; Wilcox, 2015: 129). As such, scholars have raised critical questions around both the definition and distinction between civilians and combatants under the drone (Allinson, 2015;Cupples and Glynn, 2020;Gregory, 2017) and their designation as a precarious and 'targeted class' (Akhter, 2017;Holmqvist, 2013;Parks, 2016: 230). Highlighting the drone's capacity to surveil for lengthy periods and wait for the 'most opportune moment' to strike (Gregory, 2017: 212), scholars have focused attention to the striking of 'homes, vehicles, and public spaces' (Wilcox, 2015: 129) through particular strike practices, such as the 'knock-on-roof'.…”

“…While it is now repeatedly asserted that we live in a 'drone age' or 'zeitgeist' (Coley and Lockwood, 2015;Rothstein, 2015), drone literature continues to be predominated by the drone as military surveillance and strike tool in formal warfare. Here, geographers have made important contributions to understanding the drone's emergence, employment, and its implications as a 'contemporary icon' of airpower (Akhter, 2017;Gregory, 2011aGregory, , 2014Hall Kindervater, 2016Shaw, 2016Shaw, , 2017Shaw and Akhter, 2012;Wall, 2013: 33;Williams, 2011). In revealing the spatial dimensions of drone warfare, they have interrogated the drone's role in the War On Terror's 'forever' and 'everywhere war' (Gregory, 2011b: 238).…”

Making space for drones: The contested reregulation of airspace in Tanzania and Rwanda

“…Geographers have made a distinctive contribution to understanding these issues, reflecting interest in processes of enclosure, spatial regulation (of the skies), and notions of vertical and volumetric geographies (e.g., Adey, 2010;Budd, 2009;Dodge & Kitchen, 2004;Graham, 2016;Lin, 2017;Williams, 2011). There is a growing body of geographical drone research (e.g., Akhter, 2019;Garrett & Anderson, 2018;Gregory, 2011;Jackman, 2019;Kaplan, 2020;Klauser & Pedrozo, 2015;Sandvik & Lohne, 2014;Shaw, 2017), which this paper builds on in a number of ways. First, the paper extends literature on the new spatialities of dronespace by engaging in detail with the politics and practices of airspace regulation, highlighting the problem of "rogue" aircraft as a key point of tension that -in trying to "make space for drones" -regulators attempt to resolve through new spatial orderings, technologies, rules, and protocols.…”