Article ID: CBB568832607

‘There’s always a [white] man in the loop’: The gendered and racialized politics of civilian drones (August 2018)

unapi

In 2014, the United States Federal Aviation Administration chose six sites at which to conduct research crucial to integrating unmanned aircraft systems into the nation’s airspace. Analyzing data collected from five focus groups that we conducted at one of these test sites, this article centers on the gendered and racialized politics of civilian unmanned aircraft. Civilian drone use remains a relatively unchallenged space for displaying hypermasculinity via technological expertise. Focusing on the topic of surveillance, we argue that a very particular, intersectional perspective – white technomasculinity – profoundly influences how civilian unmanned aircraft are imagined, designed and deployed. While this perspective went unmarked and was taken for granted by most of our focus group participants, our analysis highlights the constructed and contingent nature of white technomasculinity, and we argue that a critical technological consciousness is necessary to prevent these technologies from reinforcing or exacerbating unequal distributions of rights and responsibilities among differently located social actors. We conclude our paper on a cautiously hopeful note, drawing attention to moments in which more distributed, or ‘sousveillant’, uses of civilian UAS appeared possible.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB568832607/

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Authors & Contributors
Jones, Steve
Stephen Secules
Kellie Owens
Brittany Duncan
Lisa M. PytlikZillig
Sun-ha Hong
Concepts
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Technology and gender
Technology and race
Regulation
Technology and society
Technology
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
20th century, early
19th century
Places
United States
South Africa
California (U.S.)
Institutions
United States. Food and Drug Administration
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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