Life in the Age of Drone Warfare

449 Pages·2017·41.942 MB·English

by  Lisa Parks, Caren Kaplan (eds.)

LIFE IN THE
AGE OF DRONE
WARFARE
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LIFE IN THE
AGE OF DRONE
WARFARE
LISA PARKS AND CAREN KAPLAN, Editors
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
DURHAM AND LONDON
2017
© 2017 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞
Text design by Adrianna Sutton
Cover design by Matthew Tauch
Typeset in Sabon and Din by Westchester Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Parks, Lisa, editor. | Kaplan, Caren, [date–] editor.
Title: Life in the age of drone warfare / Lisa Parks and Caren Kaplan, editors.
Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references
and index. | Description based on print version rec ord and cip data provided
by publisher; resource not viewed. Identifiers: lccn 2017014021 (print) |
lccn 2017016815 (ebook)
isbn 9780822372813 (ebook)
isbn 9780822369585 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 9780822369738 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Drone aircraft. | Air warfare. | Drone aircraft pi lots.
Classification: lcc ug1242.d7 (ebook) | lcc ug1242.d7 l54 2017 (print) |
ddc 358.4/14— dc23
lc rec ord available at https:// lccn.loc . gov / 2017014021
Cover art: Drone Shadow installation by James Bridle (jamesbridle.com), Ljubljana,
2015. Photograph courtesy of Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art.
CONTENTS
Acknowl edgments | vii
INTRODUCTION LISA PARKS AND CAREN KAPLAN | 1
PART I. JURIDICAL, GENEALOGICAL,
AND GEOPO LITI CAL IMAGINARIES | 23
1 DIRTY DANCING
Drones and Death in the Borderlands
DEREK GREGORY | 25
2 LAWFARE AND ARMED CONFLICTS
A Comparative Analy sis of Israeli and U.S. Targeted Killing Policies
and Legal Challenges against Them
LISA HAJJAR | 59
3 AMERICAN KAMIKAZE
Television- Guided Assault Drones in World War II
KATHERINE CHANDLER | 89
4 (IM)MATERIAL TERROR
Incitement to Vio lence Discourse as Racializing Technology
in the War on Terror
ANDREA MILLER | 112
5 VERTICAL MEDIATION AND THE U.S. DRONE WAR
IN THE HORN OF AFRICA
LISA PARKS | 134
PART II. PERCEPTION AND PERSPECTIVE | 159
6 DRONE- O- RAMA
Troubling the Temporal and Spatial Logics of Distance Warfare
CAREN KAPLAN | 161
7 DRONOLOGIES
Or Twice- Told Tales
RICARDO DOMINGUEZ | 178
8 IN PURSUIT OF OTHER NETWORKS
Drone Art and Accelerationist Aesthetics
THOMAS STUBBLEFIELD | 195
9 THE CONTAINMENT ZONE
MADIHA TAHIR | 220
10 STONERS, STONES, AND DRONES
Transnational South Asian Visuality from Above and Below
ANJALI NATH | 241
PART III. BIOPOLITICS, AUTOMATION,
AND ROBOTICS | 259
11 TAKING PEOPLE OUT
Drones, Media/Weapons, and the Coming Humanectomy
JEREMY PACKER AND JOSHUA REEVES | 261
12 THE LABOR OF SURVEILLANCE AND
BUREAUCRATIZED KILLING
New Subjectivities of Military Drone Operators
PETER ASARO | 282
13 LETTER FROM A SENSOR OPERATOR
BRANDON BRYANT | 315
14 MATERIALITIES OF THE ROBOTIC
JORDAN CRANDALL | 324
15 DRONE IMAGINARIES
The Technopolitics of Visuality in Postcolony and Empire
INDERPAL GREWAL | 343
Bibliography | 367
Contributors | 411
Index | 415
ACKNOWLE DGMENTS
Life in the Age of Drone Warfare emerged through a series of dialogues
between media, communication, and cultural studies scholars, artists, soci-
ologists, feminists, geographers, journalists, phi loso phers, and science and
technology studies specialists during the past several years. The collection
began to germinate during the Drones at Home conference at the Univer-
sity of California– San Diego in 2012, org an ized by Jordan Crandall and
Ricardo Dominguez, and further evolved during the Sensing the Long War:
Sites, Signals and Sounds workshop at the University of California– Davis,
the Life in the Age of Drones symposium at the University of California–
Santa Barbara in 2013, and the Eyes in the Skies: Drones and the Politics
of Distance Warfare conference at uc Davis in 2016. We are grateful to the
Militarization Research Group, the Mellon Digital Cultures Initiative, the
Department of American Studies, and the Cultural Studies Gradua te Group
at uc Davis and the Center for Information Technology and Society, Inter-
disciplinary Humanities Institute, and Department of Film and Media Stud-
ies at uc Santa Barbara, whose support enabled us to deepen and expand
our discussions and understandings of drone technologies and proc esses of
militarization. We also thank Arthur and Marilouise Kroker for their vital
interventions at the uc San Diego and uc Santa Barbara events. Their prov-
ocations continue to reverberate and have marked this proje ct in numerous
ways. In addition, we are grateful to all the conference, workshop, and sym-
posium participants for their stimulating pres en ta tions and artworks, many
of which are included in this book. Other scholars and activists who have
supported and inspired us include Javier Arbona, M. Ryan Calo, Deborah
Cowen, Lindsey Dillon, Kris Fallon, Emily Gilbert, Casey Cooper Johnson,
Léopold Lambert, Nancy Mancias (code pink), Minoo Moallem, Trevor
Paglen, Marko Peljhan, Kriss Ravetto- Biagioli, Alex Rivera, Rebecca Stein,
Jennifer Terry, and Federica Timeto. We also thank Abby Hinsman for edi-
torial assistance as this proj ect was getting off the ground.
viii | ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
As our ideas for the Life in the Age of Drone Warfare collection began to
cohere, we were very fortunate to connect with editor Courtney Berger, who
has been supportive, thoughtful, and enthusiastic throughout the editorial
proc ess. We are grateful for her commitment to this proje ct and the man-
ner in which she helped it come to fruition. We also thank Sandra Korn and
Susan Albury at Duke University Press for their careful readings and attention
to detail and for being extremely helpful editorial associates. We are indebted
to this book’s contributors for their significant chapters, ongoing commitment
to the proj ect and the issues it addresses, and their collegiality. Our deepest
gratitude goes to Andrea Miller, who worked tirelessly as an editorial assistant
during vario us stages of the manuscript’s preparation. Simply put, the proj-
ect could not have happened without her myriad efforts. Fi nally, the proj ect
benefited from the insightful reviews of three anonymous readers, whose com-
ments were enormously helpful as we moved the proj ect toward completion.
Beyond those mentioned above, we would like to thank Brandon Bryant
for his openness to participate in this proje ct, despite challenges he contin-
ues to face as a veteran and whistleb lower. Caren Kaplan thanks her faculty
and gradu ate student colleagues in American Studies (especially her depart-
ment chair, Julie Sze) and Cultural Studies at uc Davis for sharing their
work and supporting her research interests with such enthusiasm. She also
thanks Eric Smoodin and Sofia Smoodin-K aplan for all kinds of support
on the home front and Marisol de la Cadena, Inderpal Grewal, Meredith
Miller, Minoo Moallem, Ella Shohat, and Jennifer Terry for their friendship
and interest in this work. She also extends a big thanks to Lisa Parks for
conceiving this proj ect and getting it started before inviting her to join as
coeditor— working together has been a joyful experience. Lisa Parks thanks
the faculty, gradua te students, and staff in the Department of Film and Media
Studies at uc Santa Barbara for providing a stimulating, supportive, and fun
work environment for so many years, and expresses gratitude to her new col-
leagues in Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT for creating new op-
portunities and a dynamic place to work. She also thanks from the bottom of
her heart John Harley, Jennifer Holt, Moya Luckett, Constance Penley, Rita
Raley, Cristina Venegas, and Janet Walker for their incredible friendship and
support over the years, and conveys her deepest gratitude to Caren Kaplan
for being an exceptional coeditor, scholar, and friend.
INTRODUCTION
LISA PARKS AND CAREN KAPLAN
SINCE 2009, U.S. news media have had a virtual love affair with the drone.
Celebrating the alleged novelty and flexibility of the technology, report-
ers have pointed to a proliferating array of quirky or surprising drone uses,
ranging from pizza delivery to pornography recording, from the maintenance
of energy plants to the protection of wildlife, from graffiti writing to traffic
monitoring.1 Drones, we are told, are used in sectors as diverse as real es-
tate, art photography, natu ral resource development, insurance, sports, me-
teorology, and activism.2 They perform tasks that are too risky, remote, or
mundane for humans, whether monitoring lava inside a volcano, mea sur ing
winds inside a hurricane, or performing safety inspections on aircraft. Toy
Predators are sold out because of their popularity. Fears of proliferating
drones in domestic airspace have spurred new regulations and legislation,
prompting Chicago to become a no-drone zone.3 Despite such regulations,
drones have even fallen on the White House lawn.4 It is impossible to keep
up with all the drone news. So much reporting on drones has appeared
that Caren Kaplan refers to it in her chapter in this book as the “drone-o -
rama”—an immersion in the sights and sounds of an expanding “military-
industrial- media- entertainment network” that now includes views captured
by robotic hummingbirds and remote- controlled quadcopters.5
In addition to this flood of news features about the playful and pragmatic
potentials of drones, the drone- o- rama has included a steady stream of re-
porting on the more somber topics of drone warfare and targeted killing.
Investigative reporter Jane Mayer first broke the story about the Central
Intelligence Agency’s (cia) drone war in Pakistan in 2009.6 Since then, a
whirlwind of public commentary has emerged on drone warfare. The United
Nations (un) has conducted special investigations, activists have protested,
policy experts have deliberated, news agencies have queried, and research-
ers have published lengthy reports.7 The drone obsession has also struck the