Description
In this work I take issue with the proliferation of a particular scholarly approach in its examination of drone warfare. Although feminist and critical theorists took it upon themselves to rethink the drone and to intervene critically in their examination of it, their work, I argue, remains a self-contained theoretical loop that speaks little of and to the lived reality of Pakistanis, Afghans and Gazans’ daily encounters with the drone. The intensification of scholarly works on drones is the result of colonial remnants gone unexamined. This scholarship has legitimized myths to the extent they function as truth. It has endeavoured and succeeded in laying the ground for an artificial and unnatural lexicon that speaks little of/to the lived reality of those who encounter the drone every day, let alone of/to further disciplines.
In what follows, I contest speculative Sci-Fi writing as a feminist and academically acclaimed mode of enquiry, particularly when juxtaposed with the dubiousness of feelings. Although both share a speculative element, the first has legitimized itself as a field of studies whereas the latter continues to be rendered void of any epistemic relevance. The unbearable whiteness of speculative feminist writing renders it academically and theoretically sound. At the same time, those feelings that emerge from the Other side of the “abyssal line” (Santos 2007) are yet to warrant academic recognition. I relate the feelings that permeate literary work from Pakistan (poetry) and Gaza (novels) on the drone in order to challenge white academics - notably self-professed (white) feminists’ - pompous and erring race to theorize the drone, as the recent scholarship would suggest.
I chart this work through the framework of felt theory, as advanced by Indigenous Studies scholar Dian Million. Feelings, in this work, no longer constitute a vacuous type of knowledge that is deemed non-meriting of crossing over the epistemic “abyss” (Santos 2007) that separates modern western thinking from further modes of thinking. By prioritising feelings over a relevent corpus of literature, I hope to showcase a decolonial praxis that stirs “wonder and indignation” and produces “new, nonconformist, destabilizing, and indeed rebellious theory and practice” (Santos 2007: 40).
Keywords. Drones, post-decolonization, felt theory, white academia.
