Cultural politics of targeted killing on drones, counter-insurgency, and violence

Includes bibliographies and index.

The cultural politics of the targeted killing assemblage : introduction -- Beyond the exception : the legal problematisation of targeted killing -- The politics of targeted killing : introduction -- Science, capitalism, and the RPA : introduction -- The aesthetic subjects of targeted killing : introduction -- The quotidian geopolitics of targeted killing strikes : introduction -- Concluding remarks on the cultural politics of targeted killing : introduction.

"The deployment of remotely piloted air platforms (RPAs) (or drones) has become a defining feature of contemporary counter-insurgency operations. Scholarly analysis and public debate has primarily focused on two issues: the legality of targeted killing and whether the practice is effective at disrupting insurgency networks, and the intensive media and activist scrutiny of the policy processes through which targeted killing decisions have been made. While contributing to these ongoing discussions, this book aims to determine how targeted killing has become possible in contemporary counter-insurgency operations undertaken by liberal regimes. Each chapter is oriented around a problematisation that has shaped the cultural politics of the targeted killing assemblage. Grayson argues that in order to understand how specific forms of violence become prevalent, it is important to determine how problematisations that enable them are shaped by a politico-cultural system in which culture operates in conjunction with technological, economic, governmental, and geostrategic elements"--Back cover.