Seeing and Unmaking Civilians in Afghanistan

Visual Technologies and Contested Professional Visions

Bibliographic Data

ID5337014
AuthorsChristiane Wilke (0000-0001-8787-4023, Carleton University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume42
Issue6
Pages1031-1060
Publication date2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243917703463
OpenAlexW2606375403
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited22

While the distinction between civilians and combatants is fundamental to international law, it is contested and complicated in practice. How do North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officers see civilians in Afghanistan? Focusing on 2009 air strike in Kunduz, this article argues that the professional vision of NATO officers relies not only on recent military technologies that allow for aerial surveillance, thermal imaging, and precise targeting but also on the assumptions, vocabularies, modes of attention, and hierarchies of knowledges that the officers bring to the interpretation of aerial surveillance images. Professional vision is socially situated and frequently contested with communities of practice. In the case of the Kunduz air strike, the aerial vantage point and the military visual technologies cannot fully determine what would be seen. Instead, the officers' assumptions about Afghanistan, threats, and the gender of the civilian inform the vocabulary they use for coding people and places as civilian or noncivilian. Civilians are not simply "found," they are produced through specific forms of professional vision

Linguistics · North Atlantic Treaty · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Situated · Sociology · Treaty · Vocabulary · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Global Security and Public Health · Law · War, Ethics, and Justification · Artificial Intelligence

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