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From Uniforms to Monitors : Persuasive design and targeting in international law

Parsa, Amin LU and Keshavarz, Mahmoud (2018) Law and Society association
Abstract
US counterinsurgency, thanks to geographically unbounded reach of drones, is characterized by extending wartime violence from battlefield to the monitor. In this article, we claim that the significance of the ‘new technologies’ of looking and targeting lies in their capacity to negotiate laws of war into the material world, thus determining the legitimacy of their expansive violence. Such negotiations operate through a series of visual and design practices that produce and maintain a space of persuasion. Combining legal studies with design studies we examine the military uniform as law’s original visual marker mediating these spaces of persuasion between the parties involved. Once abandoned in insurgencies, other technologies of looking,... (More)
US counterinsurgency, thanks to geographically unbounded reach of drones, is characterized by extending wartime violence from battlefield to the monitor. In this article, we claim that the significance of the ‘new technologies’ of looking and targeting lies in their capacity to negotiate laws of war into the material world, thus determining the legitimacy of their expansive violence. Such negotiations operate through a series of visual and design practices that produce and maintain a space of persuasion. Combining legal studies with design studies we examine the military uniform as law’s original visual marker mediating these spaces of persuasion between the parties involved. Once abandoned in insurgencies, other technologies of looking, drones in particular, emerge to provide the persuasiveness otherwise was provided by military uniform. Consequently, we conclude that the critical function of drone beyond its technological complexity is in its ability to maintain the continuity of this persuasive space of violence. (Less)
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
unpublished
subject
conference name
Law and Society association
conference location
Toronto, Canada
conference dates
2018-06-07 - 2018-06-10
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ef9a15ae-eedf-44f6-a46d-053b1670a920
date added to LUP
2019-05-13 15:37:14
date last changed
2019-05-14 11:17:46
@misc{ef9a15ae-eedf-44f6-a46d-053b1670a920,
  abstract     = {{US counterinsurgency, thanks to geographically unbounded reach of drones, is characterized by extending wartime violence from battlefield to the monitor. In this article, we claim that the significance of the ‘new technologies’ of looking and targeting lies in their capacity to negotiate laws of war into the material world, thus determining the legitimacy of their expansive violence. Such negotiations operate through a series of visual and design practices that produce and maintain a space of persuasion. Combining legal studies with design studies we examine the military uniform as law’s original visual marker mediating these spaces of persuasion between the parties involved. Once abandoned in insurgencies, other technologies of looking, drones in particular, emerge to provide the persuasiveness otherwise was provided by military uniform. Consequently, we conclude that the critical function of drone beyond its technological complexity is in its ability to maintain the continuity of this persuasive space of violence.}},
  author       = {{Parsa, Amin and Keshavarz, Mahmoud}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  title        = {{From Uniforms to Monitors : Persuasive design and targeting in international law}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}