Elke Schwarz
My research is situated in political philosophy, philosophy of technology and critical security studies. I focus on the intersection of ethics of war and ethics of technology with an emphasis on unmanned and autonomous / intelligent military technologies and their impact on the politics of contemporary warfare. I also research themes of Apocalypse, eschatology and their resonances within the contemporary technology industry.
less
InterestsView All (30)
Uploads
Papers
modes of violence into sharp relief: the drone, as an ostensibly
rational, clinical and measured weapon of war, and suicide bombings,
frequently portrayed as the horrid deeds of fanatics. In this
article, I seek to challenge this juxtaposition and instead suggest
that both modalities of killing are part of the same technologicallymediated
ecology of violence. To do this, I examine the materialsemiotic
assemblage of the drone and of the suicide bomber,
paying attention to the technological production of each mode
of violence, as well as the narratives that render each figure
intelligible in the war on terrorism. I argue that the strongly
divergent narratives found in Western discourse serve as a politically
expedient sense–making device, whereby suicide bombing is
pathologised, thereby justifying ever more intrusive violent acts
with seemingly rational technologies like the drone. Rather than
“solving” the problem of terrorism, this creates counter-productive,
or iatrogenic, effects, in which technological mediation escalates
rather than diminishes cycles of violence. By way of response,
I suggest that a better understanding of the relational nature of
violence in the war on terrorism might be gained by reading the
two not as antithetical figures, but instead as operating in the
same technological key.
modes of violence into sharp relief: the drone, as an ostensibly
rational, clinical and measured weapon of war, and suicide bombings,
frequently portrayed as the horrid deeds of fanatics. In this
article, I seek to challenge this juxtaposition and instead suggest
that both modalities of killing are part of the same technologicallymediated
ecology of violence. To do this, I examine the materialsemiotic
assemblage of the drone and of the suicide bomber,
paying attention to the technological production of each mode
of violence, as well as the narratives that render each figure
intelligible in the war on terrorism. I argue that the strongly
divergent narratives found in Western discourse serve as a politically
expedient sense–making device, whereby suicide bombing is
pathologised, thereby justifying ever more intrusive violent acts
with seemingly rational technologies like the drone. Rather than
“solving” the problem of terrorism, this creates counter-productive,
or iatrogenic, effects, in which technological mediation escalates
rather than diminishes cycles of violence. By way of response,
I suggest that a better understanding of the relational nature of
violence in the war on terrorism might be gained by reading the
two not as antithetical figures, but instead as operating in the
same technological key.