GLOBAL SOUTH DRONIFICATION: MAPPING DRONE SOCIO-TECHNICAL NETWORKS IN CÓRDOBA (ARGENTINA)

LIMPO GONZALEZ, ALEJANDRO; MACKINSON, EUGENIA; MAGALLANES UDOVICICH, MARIANA LORETA; MAURO, AGUSTÍN; SANDRONE, DARÍO; TORREZ, SEBASTIÁN AGUSTÍN

Drones in Society: New Visual Aesthetics

Palgrave MacMillan Cham

Año: 2023;

Drones are becoming pervasive technologies in contemporary societies of the globalsouth. Argentina has witnessed the expansion of drone technology in areas such assmart agriculture and environmental monitoring, film and entertainment, security andhealth, but also journalism and social media. This chapter offers a series of ethnographicscenes that map drones as “techniques of vision and visualisation” (Klauser andPedrozo, 2015: 287) across legal circuits, social practices of development and usage, aswell as imaginaries of control and care, either of people, goods, or landscapes, currentlyoperating in Córdoba, province of Argentina. By doing so, we address a fundamentalquestion: How do we account for drones in society without bypassing the profoundheterogeneity of socio-technical processes?Studies on dronification in the global south have privileged state power andsurveillance, focusing on drones as the ultimate tool for territorial management andpopulation control (Arteaga Botello, 2016). Our account broadens this picture of drones´vertical gaze as epitomising state power while problematizing dronification as a morecomplex and multidimensional process. We aim to share ‘local’ experiences fromCórdoba drone networks to reflect on the phenomenon of ‘dronification’ exploring whatsort of practices and politics underpin and articulate vertical views.