Chasing Dragons

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 201

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Anything But Benevolent: The Remodelling of the Welfare State' by Ross McKibben at lrb.co.uk

• 'When the Boston Bombing Happens in Iraq' by Robert Hariman at nocaptionneeded.com

• 'The Tragedies of Other Places' by Derek Gregory at geographicalimaginations.com

• '20th Century Death' at informationisbeautiful.com

• 'RAF Graduates First Class of New Groundbased Pilots' by Lewis Page at theregister.co.uk

Stay safe.

Image credit for 'Sea Dreams': Playingwithbrushes

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 196

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Bureaucratics' by Jan Banning at janbanning.com

• 'Labor, Capital, and Virtual Reality' by Robert Hariman at nocaptionneeded.com

• 'Shadow Lives: UK's War on Terror has Become a War on Women and Children' by Victoria Brittain at guernicamag.com

• 'Death and Disease Around the World Visualised' by Ami Sedghi at the datablog

Peace.

Photo credit: Vinoth Chandar

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 188

Happy new year to all! This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Learning to Love Torture, Zero Dark Thirty-Style' by Karen J. Greenberg at guernicamag.com

• 'What Feedback do Students Want' by Alasdair Blair et al at politicsjournal.org

• 'Bradley Garrett's Five New Rules for the Neoliberal Academy' by Stuart Elden at progressivegeographies.com

• 'Everything We Know About Drone Strikes So Far' by Cora Currier at ukprogressive.co.uk

Have a good weekend!

Photo credit: kevin dooley

 

Related articles

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 187

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 184

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 186

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 179

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'The Permanent War' at washingtonpost.com (a three part series on the who, why, where, what, and how of drone warfare)

• 'Transguy: Packing Privilege' by Ryan Legg at owldolatrous.com (Peggy McIntosh's backpack of privilege gets a thoughtful update)

• 'The Hidden Map of Science: Pre-Publication History of Articles Tell Us that Rejection Leads to Higher Citation Rates' by Vincent Calcagno at lseimpactblog

• 'Do the Roots of Violent Radicalisation Lie Where the UK Government Suspects They Do?' by Jack Holland at e-ir.info

• 'The Coalition is Turning UK Universities into Border Checkpoints' by Kyle Grayson at huffingtonpost.com

I hope that you have a good weekend.

Image Credit: Humphrey King

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 175

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Living Under Drones' by the Stanford Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at livingunderdrones.org

• 'In Interview, Yemeni President Acknowledges Approving U.S. Drone Strikes' by Greg Miller at washingtonpost.com

• 'Not Even the White House Knows Drone Body Count' by Noah Shachtman at dangerroom

• 'Free Market Football' by Robert Hariman at nocaptionneeded.com

Enjoy the weekend.

Photo credit: Kevin Dooley

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 174

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Scientists Discover How Social Isolation Damages Young Brains' by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway at solitarywatch.com

• 'The Terrorism Delusion' by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewardt in the journal International Security

• 'Taxes and the Wealthy: Effects of Raising Top Tax Rates' by Martin Hart-Lansberg at sociologicalimages

• 'The Impact of Economics Blogs' by David McKenzie and Berk Ozler at worldbank.org

• 'You Might Have Missed: Drones, Targeted Killing, and National Security' by Micah Zenko at onpoliticspowerandprevention

Photo credit: Randy Le'Moine Photography

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 165

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Estimating the Price of Offshore' at taxjustice.net

• 'The Teriffying Background of the Man who Ran a CIA Assassination Unit' by Conor Friedersdorf at theatlantic.com

• 'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math' by Bill McKibben at rollingstone.com

• 'War's Longue Duree'  by Robert Hariman at nocaptionneeded.com

• 'War and Distance: Imagination' by Derek Gregory at geographicalimaginations.com

Photo credit: Doug Bowman

Six Theses on Targeted Killing

In the latest issue of POLITICS, I have a short article that identifies six important theses with respect to targeted killing.

• Targeted killing cannot be reduced to a single governing logic. Rather, it is important to map out how it is enabled by a constellation of logics (sovereign, disciplinary, biopolitical, and control)  that converge in the practices of counter-insurgency.

• Targeted killing is a form of lawfare that uses the law as a means of securing the extra-judicial killing of specific individuals. The problem is not that targeted killing violates the law from first principles. The problem is that targeted killing can work within the law, allowing for plausible--though not necessarily credible--legal justification for its commissioning.

• Targeted killing is a visual practice shaped by epistemological and aesthetic realism. It is one of the latest tactics in the history of counter-insurgency to administer compulsary visibility over populations of interest.

• Targeted killing is a form of spatial management. It draws attention to the influence of what the Royal Air Force has called 'control without occupation' as a form of territorial administration. Targeted killing also redefines everyday places that may be seen as sacred into theatres for counter-insurgency operations. Redefining places in order to permit targeted killing defiles them in ways that will have long-lasting political implications.

• Targeted killing is a symbolic form of communication. Unlike orthodox forms of assassination, targeted killing expresses value judgements regarding the political illegitimacy of specific individuals rather than their political importance.

• The resort to targeted killing in what Derek Gregory has referred to as the wars of the 'colonial present', reflects the ongoing failures of counter-insurgency and contemporary forms of geopolitical control.

These theses are serving as central provocations for the book project on targeted killing that I am contining to write. In some cases, entire chapters are being dedicated to exploring individual theses (e.g., lawfare, spatial management, symbolic communication). Others are serving as thematics that run through the analysis. 

The article is available to freely download until the end of the July 2012. You can also email me for a copy.

Photo credit: Duncan Hall

Critical Studies on Security: A Call for Papers

As one of the Associate Editors for the new journal Critical Studies on Security, I am pleased to announce the following call for papers:

Security is one of the defining features of our,or any, time. Collectively we seek security, value security, desire security, while at the same time often being troubled by the actions that are taken in the name of our security. Critical Studies on Security is an international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of ‘security’ in and through social critique. The journal aims to publish theoretically informed scholarship, which engages with the practice and politics of security. We welcome articles from or across the range of disciplines, and from any of the critical social theoretical positions.

Submission details:

• Papers for consideration should be submitted electronically as a Word document to the editors at csos@yorku.ca.

• Authors may also contact the editors with proposals for special issues.

• Articles should range between 5,000 and 8,000 words including references.

• Full ‘Instructions for authors’ can be found under the ‘Authors and submissions’ tab on the journal website 

I am very excited about this project which is being managed from my old alma mater, the York Centre for International and Security Studies. David Mutimer, as the founding editor, has put in several years of hard work to bring CSoS together and to assemble an impressive international editorial board that will play an important role in shaping the journal. With the  limited number of venues currently  publishing critical work on security--particularly within international relations where you can count them with one hand--I hope that the introduction of a new supra-disciplinary journal dedicated to publishing security-related research can make an important contribution to the sub-discipline into its third generation and beyond.

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 155

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Real Innovation: What It Really Is, and How to Do It (Really)' by Bill O'Connor at forbes.com

• 'Are the LOLCats Making Us Smart' by Rebecca J. Rosen at theatlantic.com

• In anticipation of the airing of '56 Up' this week, the entire '7 Up' Documentary Series at youtube.com

• 'Now 4 Billion People Know the Joy of Txt' by John Naughton at guardian.co.uk

• 'Pentagon Issues Drone War Talking Points' by Spencer Ackerman at thedangerroom

• 'Israeli Spy Flick Reimagines Dubai Killing' by Tia Goldenbery at foxnews.com

• 'Drone Pilots: We Don't Get No Respect' by Mark Thompson at battleland (three doses of 'oh dear' in a row)

Happy Mother's Day and enjoy the weekend!

Photo credit: amyelyse