Drones and the uninsurable security subjects

• Published in: Third world quarterly Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 253 - 269
• Main Authors: Barrinha, André, da Mota, Sarah
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Routledge 01.02.2017; Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Air transportation; Armed forces; counter-terrorism; Counterterrorism; Drones; International security; National security; North and South; power; Radicalism; Security policy; terrorism; uninsured subjects; US security policy; United States > US
• ISSN: 0143-6597; 1360-2241
• DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1205440

This paper engages with the security dynamics underlying the use of drones and their impact on security subjects - individuals and groups that are the ultimate recipients of specific security policies, regardless of whether these have beneficial effects on them. Using Mark Duffield's distinction between the insured Global North and the non-insured Global South, this paper discusses how drones generate a radical dissociation between the intervener and the intervened that ultimately produces new security environments at the margins of the international system. These new security environments are defined by the articulation between space, technologies and bodies: bodies of invisible subjects; bodies that are uninsurable.