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Police Drones and the Air: Towards a Volumetric Geopolitics of Security
Author(s) -
Klauser Francisco
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1111/spsr.12431
Subject(s) - drone , geopolitics , dimension (graph theory) , public security , relation (database) , object (grammar) , political science , airport security , scale (ratio) , computer security , sociology , public relations , law , geography , computer science , artificial intelligence , cartography , politics , genetics , biology , mathematics , database , pure mathematics
The paper explores the aerial dimension of policing and surveillance. It does so by drawing upon select results from a large‐scale survey conducted in 2017 among professional (public and private) drone users in Switzerland. Focusing in particular on the police, the paper shows that the technology not only generates novel ways of looking down from above, but also of looking up from below, thus instilling a kind of air‐mindedness among the police. In making the airspace explicit as an object, and stake of imaginaries, concerns and practices, drones mediate novel ways of relating to the air, understanding it, approaching it and acting in relation to it.