Enabling persistent presence? Performing the embodied geopolitics of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle assemblage

Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being increasingly used to provide surveillance and attack capabilities within war zones. At the heart of much of the rhetoric about these aircraft is their supposed ability to enable persistent presence across the battlespace. They are also unique in that they actively distance the aircrew from the aircraft. This paper seeks to question whether this claim to persistent presence can be justified and considers the implications of the distancing of pilot from machine in this. In order to achieve this, the paper focuses upon conceptualising UAVs as assemblages, composed of both human and machine elements. It uses firsthand accounts from a Royal Air Force Reaper UAV aircrew as a basis to analyse the ways in which the deployment of these aircraft in Afghanistan is changing the ways that war is experienced by aerial combatants. It does this through the utilisation of a feminist, embodied geopolitics, refiguring it from a concern with victims of war to argue for its use to understand the micro-scale of how the humans within these UAV assemblages experience combat. This paper thus focuses upon the extent to which the Reaper UAV achieves a persistent presence through analysis of its supposed more-than-human loitering and vision abilities, and the limitations associated with the requirement for a human-in-the loop. The paper contends that although UAVs like the Reaper change the geopolitics of combat, the continuing requirement for the human element of the assemblage restricts their ability to provide persistent presence.     

Glasgow university library Sölch collection : A note

EUROPE

The Soils around Jedburgh and Morebattle. By John W. Muir. 9 ¾×6 ¾. Pp. 878. 2 maps. 20 tables. 11 diagrams. 32 plates. 8 colour plates. Edinburgh : H.M.S.O., 1956. 30s.

The British Moorlands : A problem in land utilisation. By John Fraser Hart. 8 ½×5 ½. Pp. viii+98. 25 figures. University of Georgia Monograph, No. 2. Athens (U.S.A.) : Georgia University Press, 1955. $2.00.

European Refugees : A Study in Forced Population Movement. By Malcolm J. Proudfoot. 5 ½×8 ½. Pp. vi+542. 49 tables. 2 maps. London: Faber &; Faber Ltd, 1957. 52s 6d.

East Norway and its Frontiers. By Frank Noel Stagg. 8 ¾×5 ¾. Pp.285. 15 plates. 6 maps. London : Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1956. 18s.

La Yougoslavie : Aperçu Géographique. By B. Z. Milojevic. Translated by Mila Dordlvic. 9 ¼×6 ½. Pp. xi+89. I folded end map and numerous figures and plates. Beograd : La Commission pour les relations culturelles avec l'étranger, 1956.

ASIA

The Pakistani Way of Life. By I. H. Qureshi. 8 ¾×5 ¾. Pp. xi+81. 23 plates. London : William Heinemann Ltd, 1955. 12s 6d.

Indian Climatology. By S. B. Chattergee. 9 ½×6 ¼. Pp. 417. 36 tables. 80 diagrams. Calcutta : Commercial Printers, 1955. 20s.

Asia : Sketch Map and Exercise Books for upper forms. Book VII. By Thomas Pickles. 7 ¼×9 ¾. Pp.48. London : John Murray Ltd, 1956. 3s.

AMERICA

The Industrial Structure of American Cities : A geographic study of urban economy in the United States. By Gunnar Alexandersson. 10×7 ½. Pp. 134. 40 figs. 13 maps. London : Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1956. 40s.

CARTOGRAPHY

Topographical Maps and Photographic Interpretation. By P. T. Silley. 9 ½×6 ½. Pp. vii+76. 8 maps with 8 plates. 3 plates. 53 figs. London: George Philip and Son Ltd, 1955. 10s 6d.

Map and Photo Reading. By T. W. Birch. 10×7 ½. Pp.64. 24 maps and photos. London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1956. 16s.

Mapping the World. By Erwin Raisz. 6 ½×9 ½. Pp. 112. 72 figs and 7 plates. London : Abelard‐Schuman, 1956. 12s 6d.

GEOLOGY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY

Introduction to Physical Geology. By Chester R. Longwell and R. Foster Flint. 9 ¼×6 ½. Pp.vii+432. Plates and figs. 2 end paper maps. London: Chapman and Hall Ltd, 1955. 40s.

Geology and Ourselves. By F. H. Edmunds. 9 ¼×6 ½. Pp. 256. 12 plates. 15 figs. London : Hutchison's Scientific and Technical Publications, 1955. 21s.

Der Bodenfrost als Morphologischer Faktor. By Josef Schmid. 9 ½×7 ½. Pp. viii+144. 27 figs. 5 plates. Heidelberg : Dr Alfred Huthig Verlag, 1955.

Vocabulaire Franco‐anglo‐allemande de Geomorphologie. By Henri Baulig. 9 ½×6 ¼. Pp. xxv+230. Publications de la Faculte des lettres de l'Université de Strasbourg. Fasc. 130. Paris: Société d'edition: Les Belles Lettres, 1956. 1,200 fr.

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

World Economic Geography. By Earl B. Shaw. 8 ¾×6 ½. Pp. vii+582. Maps, diagrams and plates. New York : John Wiley and Sons Inc. London : Chapman and Hall Ltd, 1955. 52s.

Chisholm's Handbook of Commercial Geography. Re‐written by L. Dudley Stamp and S. Carter Gilmour. 15th Edition. 8 ¾×6. Pp. viii+915. 30 maps and diagrams. London : Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd, 1956. 70s.

La Pêche maritime el le Pêcheur en Mer. By Auguste Dupouy. 6 ½×4 ¼. Pp. 216. [Collection Armand Colin, No. 300.] Paris : Librairie Armand Colin, 1955. 250 fr.

GENERAL

A Concise Glossary of Geographical Terms. By J. C. Swayne. 6 ¼×4. Pp. 164. London : George Philip and Son Ltd, 1956. 6s 6d.

Worlds Beyond the Horizon. By Joachim G. Leithauser. Transl. by Hugh Merrick. 9 ½×6. Pp. 371. 46 plates+frontispiece. London : Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1956. 40s.

A Guide to Earth History. By Richard Carrington. 8 ½×5 ½. Pp. xvi+240. 44 figs. 16 plates, including coloured frontispiece, by Maurice Wilson. London : Chatto and Windus Ltd, 1956. 21s.

Puzzle of the Past. By Ronald Jessup. 12 ¾×9 ¾. Pp.68. Illustrations (colour/black and white). London : Rathbone Books, 1956. 15s.

ATLASES AND MAPS

The Oxford Home Atlas of the World. By Geoffrey Cumberlege. 10×7 ¾. Pp. viii+104+xxxi. London: Oxford University Press, 1955. 15s.

Map of Roman Britain : 16 miles to one inch. Third Edition. Text 11×8 ¼. Pp.43. 4 maps+Map of Roman Britain. Chessington : Ordnance Survey, 1956. 7s 6d.

Penguin Atlas. Edited by J. S. Keats. 8×5 ¾. Pp. xv+156. 80 colour maps. Harmondsworth : Penguin Books Ltd, 1956. 10s.

Oxford Regional Economic Atlas of the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. Oxford : Clarendon Press. London : Cumberlege, 1956. 42.s.     

NEO‐LIBERALISM,CULTURE AND POLICY

This article looks at the hegemonic process of neo‐liberal globalisation and its implications for culture in general and cultural policy in particular from a critical perspective. A consideration of its ideological features is a necessary supplement to the economic analysis of neo‐liberal globalisation. Ideology mediates economics and culture. As it is used here, the concept of “ideology” refers to how dominant power relations and inequalities are legitimised by distorted representations of reality at various levels. While these include abstract theory and professional expertise, it is argued that everyday language and “common sense” exemplify the operations of ideology most profoundly in securing consent to prevailing and otherwise questionable arrangements. Culture is now saturated with a market‐oriented mentality that closes out alternative ways of thinking and imagining. The general argument is illustrated with several examples drawn from across the range of lived experience and institutionalised structures, especially in the arts and broadcasting. The logic of the annual European Capital of Culture competition is also discussed with reference to the neo‐liberal framework for urban regeneration. Specifically, the experience of Glasgow 1990 and the plans for Liverpool 2008 are addressed in this regard.     

Doing a Florida thing: the creative class thesis and cultural policy

In this paper, we discuss the screen media businesses and production milieu that has developed in the predominantly rural region of the Northern Rivers, Australia, over the past 20 years. Spread across a number of towns and small cities each at some distance from each other, this screen milieu would seem to go against the prevailing logic for screen media to concentrate in globally connected cities. Taking up Allen J. Scott’s suggestion that the new capitalism of the twenty-first century is producing restructuring effects in many of the interstitial spaces between large cities, this article examines the spatial assemblages of the screen media and related creative industries sectors in one such space. We demonstrate how screen media actors in this rural region are participating in the wider cultural economy and explore its cultural policy implications.     

Competing Traditions and the Birth of Texts

Doctor Ingrid Hjelm's new book, Jerusalem's Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition. Ingrid Hjelm . T&T Clark International, New York: 2004, raises a number of interesting issues concerning the relationship between the Samaritans and the inhabitants of Judea during the Hasmonean period. Though her intention is to demonstrate the conflict origins of the literature treasured by those respective communities, and the divergent paths taken by those tradents, her ideas have further reaching implications for interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and the dates to be assigned to those materials. This essay probes Hjelm's new book, enquiring after its wider implications, especially for those interested in the rise of Biblical texts.