Drones : Visual Anthropology from the Air

Fish, Adam Richard (2020) Drones : Visual Anthropology from the Air. In: Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video :. Routledge. ISBN 9780367185824

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Abstract

This book chapter investigates the ethnographies, epistemologies, and ontologies of atmospheres and how atmospheric technologies are deployed in visual anthropology. Unmanned aerial vehicles or drones are epistemological tools for the production of videographical and other sensorial knowledge by anthropologists, archaeologists, and allied fields of natural science, social science, and social justice. Drones--and other atmospheric platforms such as satellites--are anthropologically relevant because of how cultures of visual and technological production evolve around their invention, deployment, and discourses of economic and political power. Lastly, this class of airborne technology is comprised of ontological objects which elevate and extend the human senses into the air, to the edge of the internet, and into entanglements with human and non-human and technological others. Thus, as epistemological, ethnographic, and ontological things drones generate compelling visual and multisensual data, offer opportunities to witness socio-technical cultures, and exist and come into being within a matrix of atmospheres, humans, and non-human agencies.