Wednesday, January 24, 2018
12:30 – 2 pm
Mackintosh Corry Hall D411
Drawing from documents collected through Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests and interview data with Canadian drone stakeholders, this presentation argues that the Canadian drone space is driven by the surveillance-industrial complex. This research documents how the seemingly benign relationships between particular stakeholder groups in Canadian drone space are the product of a ‘revolving door’ in the surveillance-industrial complex. It argues that the adoption and use of drone technologies represents and perpetuates a politics of verticality that allows particular stakeholder groups to control Canada’s sociotechnical space through policy, and this contributes to a privileged vertical gaze. These dynamics result in Canadian drone space stakeholders a) only associating with specific stakeholder groups, b) upholding particular logics and predispositions about drone technologies, and c) perpetuating discourses and narratives about drones that impact the technologies themselves, their regulation, and Canada’s sociotechnical space more broadly.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Bracken-Roche is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. Bracken-Roche completed her PhD in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University in 2017, funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her current research program investigates the contribution of unmanned aerial systems to the rapid expansion of security, policing, and commercial surveillance in Canada. Her ongoing research interest is in the relationship between governance and technology, and the social implications of technocratic governmentality.
Everyone Welcome!
The Surveillance Studies Centre
c/o David Murakami Wood
Department of Criminology
University of Ottawa
Canada