scholarly journals Assembling Israeli drone warfare: Loitering surveillance and operational sustainability

2020 ◽  
pp. 096701062095679
Author(s):  
Stefan Borg

This article examines how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones as they are more popularly known, have changed practices of Israeli warfare. In order to do so, the article proceeds in three steps. First, it traces the emergence and development of the Israeli UAV programme. Second, it examines the main factors that have enabled its expansion. Third, it turns to some of the main implications of UAVs for the way in which the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) wages war. The article argues that the combined tactical use of UAVs employed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) tasks has amounted to a strategic effect: by dramatically enhancing the field of perception, UAVs have enabled the IDF to better control the battle rhythm. UAVs in the Israeli context have enhanced the IDF’s operational sustainability, since one’s own casualties have been virtually eliminated and civilian casualties have been stretched out over, rather than concentrated in, time. Throughout the article, the changing character of the UAV is emphasized. To capture this change and to unravel the interactions among technology, warfare and broader societal forces, the article draws on actor-network theory.

Author(s):  
Liesbeth Huybrechts ◽  
Katrien Dreessen ◽  
Selina Schepers

In this chapter, the authors use actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the relations between uncertainties in co-design processes and the quality of participation. To do so, the authors investigate Latour's discussion uncertainties in relation to social processes: the nature of actors, actions, objects, facts/matters of concern, and the study of the social. To engage with the discussion on uncertainties in co-design and, more specific in infrastructuring, this chapter clusters the diversity of articulations of the role and place of uncertainty in co-design into four uncertainty models: (1) the neoliberal, (2) the management, (3) the disruptive, and (4) the open uncertainty model. To deepen the reflections on the latter, the authors evaluate the relations between the role and place of uncertainty in two infrastructuring processes in the domain of healthcare and the quality of these processes. In the final reflections, the authors elaborate on how ANT supported in developing a “lens” to assess how uncertainties hinder or contribute to the quality of participation.


Author(s):  
Arthur Adamopoulos ◽  
Martin Dick ◽  
Bill Davey

An actor-network analysis of the way in which online investors use Internet-based services has revealed a phenomenon that is not commonly reported in actor-network theory research. An aspect of the research that emerged from interviews of a wide range of online investors is a peculiar effect of changes in non-human actors on the human actors. In this paper, the authors report on the particular case and postulate that this effect may be found, if looked for, in many other actor-network theory applications.


Author(s):  
Michael Twum-Darko ◽  
Lee-Anne Lesley Harker

This paper set out to propose the actor-network theory (ANT) as a lens through which to understand and interpret the sociotechnical knowledge sharing challenges in organisations. The methodology for this study was developed within the context of ANT by adopting its ideals and principles. The findings demonstrate that using the concept of the Moments of Translation as a lens to study this phenomenon is indeed a novel way of investigating the reason why there is still difficulty with sharing and managing knowledge. This perspective is proposed to transform the way that knowledge sharing factors are perceived. By utilising a normative approach, this research looked at how knowledge sharing as an ideal can be achieved when taking into account the existing constraints within an organisation. A general framework is proposed to guide the formation of a network of aligned interest for knowledge sharing.


2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake Phillips

This article analyses the implications of the greater use of technology and information in probation practice. Using data generated via an ethnography of probation, the article firstly argues that probation in England and Wales now exists in what scholars would identify as ‘the information age’ (i.e. that computers and other technologies work to define and create probation practice as we know it). The article goes on to use actor-network theory to analyse two ‘heterogeneous networks’ to explore the way in which probation practitioners and the technologies they use interact to create particular forms of practice. The article argues that unless we understand the technology that underpins practice we cannot fully understand practice. Finally, the article considers the implications of this analysis for probation post-Transforming Rehabilitation (TR).


Author(s):  
Natalie Parker

Actor Network Theory (ANT) takes on the position that non-human objects which alter the behavior of people with which they share an environment are actors exerting force into the environment. While ANT has been used in education since the late twentieth century, it has not yet seen utilization in school library environments research. As a result, there remains a significant gap in the way school library environments are studied. This literature review seeks to make a case for the importance of including ANT in school library environments research. By taking a closer look at the design and inclusion of specific objects within the school library environment, we can better equip school library spaces for the needs and wants of the students to which the library belongs.


Author(s):  
Sonda Bouattour Fakhfakh

The huge popularity of social network sites like Facebook gave rise to numerous studies exploring the prerequisites and consequences of FB use. This article does not deviate from this direction. It offers a theoretic attempt to analyze the reasons of attachment to FB but through another perspective: the disengagement phenomenon. The theoretical framework is based on the Attachment Theory and the Actor Network Theory. Assuming that FB allows the satisfaction of the innate attachment need and that there is a social and technical interaction between users and the FB structure, the present analysis investigates the relations between user attachment style and FB use and between FB user and the FB platform (hardware and software). The aim here is not to reject (or not) some formulated hypothesis, but to develop a theoretical frame from the existing theories. The argument is that human/human and human/non-human attachment could explain why users find it very difficult to disengage even though they are willing to do so and suffering from being invaded by FB.


Author(s):  
Rick Peterson

This chapter addresses the question of what the agency of non-animate objects might imply for the study. It begins by discussing early archaeological applications of the ideas of Giddens and Bourdieu. It then moves on to discuss anthropological ideas about the agency of non-humans, in particular Ingold’s dwelling perspective and the idea of the taskscape. It suggests that the agency of inanimate objects has been conceptualised in two different ways. Gell’s ‘secondary agency’ is compared with Latour’s ‘actor-network theory’. These approaches are situated more broadly within developing Post-humanist interpretations of object agency. Understandings of time and temporality are also discussed within the same framework. The chapter follows Gell in using the distinction between A and B series time to construct an account of time experience based on the material world. B-series time is held to be a map of temporally ordered events. Material narratives of time and object biographies are shown to be central to this process, of particular importance is the way that changes to objects and places index the passage of time.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Plum

Title: The Reform of Educational Plans: Documentation, professionalism and the enactment of nursery teaching.Abstract: In 2004 the demand of documentation in Danish pre-school was made compulsory and national through the reform of educational plans. One of the arguments was that documentation would enhance the ‘professional’ development of nursery teachers and make their daily work visible and recognized. Drawing on perspectives from Actor-Network-Theory this article analyses the way in which documentation is enacted as a network of heterogeneous elements within the individual pre-school. It is argued that documentation, rather than developing ‘professionalism’, enacts the nursery teacher in a particular ‘professional’ way. Thus, it is analyzed what ‘professionalism’ becomes, and what is excluded – produced as outside of ‘professional work’.


Author(s):  
Arthur Tatnall ◽  
Stephen Burgess

Just because e-commerce technologies seems like useful tools that may assist a small to medium enterprise (SME) in doing its business better, it does not necessarily follow that these technologies will be adopted by this business. The implementation of an e-commerce system in an SME necessitates change in the way the business operates, and so should be considered as an innovation and studied using innovation theory.


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