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- Parsa, Amin
(författare)
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Images of a kinder and gentler war
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper attempts to move beyond the well-established argument that discourses of gender equality and feminist tropes at times have played a role in justifying, legitimizing and extending military aggression on behalf of the West in the Middle East. Instead, this paper explores the ways in which the US army in concrete terms is redoing masculinity in its presentation of itself as a gentler, kinder military force, engaged with women’s rights. The paper seeks to analyze how this presentation of a transformed masculinity is linked to actual killing practices in the US counterinsurgency operations. Taking as starting point the Internet phenomenon of YouTube Military Dads, homecoming videos of US soldiers donned in their combat uniforms who appear in kindergartens, schools, workplaces or gyms to surprise their children, the paper analyses the US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual in relation to the historically gendered aspects of the military uniform to unpack the role and meaning of representations of a softer military strategy.
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- Parsa, Amin
(författare)
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Logistics of participation in backstage practices of international law
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research networks, new lines of inquiries, the language for such inquiries, authorship collectives and more are formed through participation in backstage practices such as conferences, symposiums, workshops etc. If we agree on the constitutive role of such practices in shaping international law (IL) as a field of knowledge and of course making of a career in scholarship then the very material conditions of participation in backstage practices and events are also mechanisms that shape the content and directionality of the knowledge development in IL. To such material conditions of participation in the backstage events and practices, I refer as logistics of participation.In this essay I will explore the role of logistics of participation in determining participants of IL knowledge production and subsequently how such logistic necessities delimit the scoop of the thinkable in IL knowledge production.In arguing my case I will briefly explore two logistic conditions of participation and show how knowledge production in IL is precondition on certain logistic requirements that overburden scholars of institutions of the South to the point that their participation in IL knowledge production is a rarity if not all together non-existent. These two example are a) an empirical study of accessibility of academic materials such as journal articles, books and e-books as basic logistics of academic practice for Iranian scholars of IL. b) The visa regime as arguably the most materially tangible technology of impeding the actual presence and participation of scholars of the South in the scholarly events of IL.
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- Parsa, Amin, et al.
(författare)
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Persuasive Design and Targeting of insurgents in International Law
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The U.S. counterinsurgency – symbolised by the omnipresent killing eye of drones – as it expands from the battlefield to the monitor, is criticised for inaugurating a geographically unbounded war that subjects the everyday life of a population to wartime targeting calculation. We, however, claim that the significant feature of the so-called new technologies of looking and targeting is in their ability to negotiate laws of armed conflict into the material world in order to allude to the legitimacy of their expansive violence. Combining design studies and legal studies, we argue that war is ontologically a material and legal practice. Not because victory is achieved by legitimately destroying enemy’s material sources of power, but because wartime targeting is legitimised through certain material and visual practices that expands the authority and legitimacy to violence. We understand these practices as persuasive design. The primary site of persuasive design in war, and law, is the military uniform. From design’s perspective, a uniform is not an instrument but an interface, mediating a space between parties involved. It determines modes of action and meaning. This means that military uniform as a specific interface generates certain practices of looking that distinguishes legitimate targets of violence - i.e. combatants - from the illegitimate ones - i.e. civilians. When military uniform is abandoned in insurgencies, other technologies of looking, drones in particular, emerge primarily to provide the persuasiveness that once was provided by military uniform. Lastly we conclude that if the uniform as an interface persuaded limited possibilities of killing, the new interface; the screen provides unlimited possibilities as it moves to digitalised ways of looking.
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