Abstract
Abstract. This paper takes up the increasingly popular topic of drones – including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS), remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), and a vast panoply of commercial drones and copters – to argue that our analysis should lie not so much on drones as objects, but as assemblages of the vertical. Drones, I argue, constitute a socio-technical assemblage of the sky and vertical space, which means that our focus should be not (only) on their technological development and capacities but also on their effects and affects. The latter of these include increasing algorithmic data collection and circulation that follow anticipatory logics.
Highlights
This paper takes up the increasingly popular topic of drones – including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), small unmanned aerial systems, remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), and a vast panoply of commercial drones and copters – to argue that our analysis should lie not so much on drones as technological objects, but as assemblages of the vertical
I argue, constitute a socio-technical assemblage of the sky and vertical space, which means that our focus should be not on their technological development and capacities but () on their effects and affects. In this way we can begin to conceptualize the political life of objects
I conclude with a brief examination of the vulnerabilities of drones, in particular hacking global positioning system (GPS) and position, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities
Summary
This paper takes up the increasingly popular topic of drones – including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS), remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), and a vast panoply of commercial drones and copters – to argue that our analysis should lie not so much on drones as technological objects, but as assemblages of the vertical. I argue, constitute a socio-technical assemblage of the sky and vertical space, which means that our focus should be not (only) on their technological development and capacities (important as that is) but () on their effects and affects. In this way we can begin to conceptualize the political life of objects. Following a brief elaboration and explanation of the main argument introduced above, I posit that the vertical is undergoing an enclosure and colonialization through the formation of a drone market This market is constantly being brought into formation, or performed and re-formed by actors, institutions, commercial interests, and various knowledges by seeking to surmount obstacles and tensions in its formation.
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