Surveillance
The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access – review
In The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen contends that the focus on access in design around disability perpetuates inequalities, arguing instead for centralising disabled people in architectural and urban planning. Amy Batley finds that the book’s attempts to reframe disability in contemporary urban landscapes are overpowered by historical tangents and subjective claims.
While the gendered and racialised inequalities of urban design have become prominent avenues of academic debate, the limited consideration of the needs of disabled people within planning for the public sphere continues to undermine calls for more egalitarian urban design. In The Architecture of Disability, David Gissen pursues this matter, arguing that the overwhelming focus on access when designing cities continues to perpetuate inequalities for people with disabilities in using urban spaces, landscapes and buildings. For Gissen, the architectural emphasis on access is insufficient. In response to this, he calls for a more critical understanding of how disability is experienced in the urban realm, and for those with disabilities to be centralised in architectural and urban design, rather than exteriorised.
For Gissen, the existing architectural emphasis on creating urban spaces which are accessible for those with disabilities is “an incomplete response” which serves to “reinforce entrenched definitions of disability” (ix) by “view[ing] impairments as physical and mental aberrations and burdens to overcome” (xv). Rather than interpreting disability as an aberration for which compensations need to be made, Gissen calls for the creation of an architecture which coexists with disability.
Rather than interpreting disability as an aberration for which compensations need to be made, Gissen calls for the creation of an architecture which coexists with disability.
Gissen’s historical analysis is extensive and detailed, centralising historical examples of urban engagement with disability within the text. The author draws parallels between seemingly disparate historical examples, such as Athens’ Acropolis and Saint Denis’ Basilica, to argue that, in their current form, any reference to historical disability assistance at these two monuments has been minimised. For example, Gissen cites archaeological research which showed that, in Ancient Greece, the Acropolis featured ramps and the area was used by the elderly using canes and crutches. Gissen uses this second-hand historical context to claim that in the case of this monument, the space “might have been more relatable to its impaired visitors in the past than it is in its present-day condition” (9). This historical analysis is similarly strong in a later chapter, where Gissen’s discussion of 19th-century urbanism in Paris presents a refreshing read beyond the dominant urbanist tendency to blame many of contemporary Paris’ successes and ills on Baron Haussmann’s overhaul of the city’ urban planning.
Gissen cites archaeological research which showed that, in Ancient Greece, the Acropolis featured ramps and the area was used by the elderly using canes and crutches
Gissen also provides an additional new perspective from which to consider monumentality beyond existing urban analyses of their political manipulation for nation-building purposes. The author argues that present-day efforts to preserve the historic reference to the vulnerabilities of previous users at monumental sites exposes how contemporary monument management has “sublimated weakness and vulnerability as cultural values” (11) towards an idealised vision of the nation.
Though providing the reader with new perspectives from which to consider the role of disability in contemporary urban landscapes, the book’s central premise – of moving the consideration of disability in the city beyond questions of access – frequently becomes lost amid historical tangents whose relevance to the argument is not always made explicit. For example, Gissen continues his critique of monumentality in contemporary cities, but rather than tying the matter of monumentality to disability, Gissen loses focus and begins to question the role of Confederate and colonial monuments in the context of Black Lives Matter protests. The calls from those protestors deserve thorough consideration and academic debate, but the relevance to a discussion about the architecture of disability is not clarified. This reflects a broader structural problem with the book. Though the architectural and urban connections are intermittently addressed throughout the chapters, these relationships are not always clear, which leaves the reader to try to connect the dots.
Though the architectural and urban connections are intermittently addressed throughout the chapters, these relationships are not always clear, which leaves the reader to try to connect the dots.
Several of the book’s claims will likely frustrate fellow urbanists. This largely stems from the minimal referencing and portrayal of subjective statements as objective facts. For example, in discussing how the rationalisation of European and American cities has made them “some of the most inaccessible places” (53), Gissen takes issue with how the apparent “immensity and exposed quality of the boulevard make walking intimidating” (ibid.). Here, Giddens’ lack of reference to Haussmann’s renovations of Paris, which had been undertaken to enable better vision and military access to quash revolutionary fervour in the 18th-century city, seems to deliberately obfuscate a widely accepted understanding among urbanists. Gidden’s claim that boulevards are intimidating directly contradicts the general urban consensus that, in the right conditions, the surveillance – so-called “eyes on the street”– enabled by urban exposure can create feelings of security and, thus, implies a poor engagement with broader urban theory. Moreover, this argument that open urban spaces can intimidate and deter users is presented at a time when the architectural opening of urban spaces for security purposes has become preferable to hard-engineering measures and the militarisation of urban landscapes, which suggests that the author is choosing not to engage with some of the emerging urban challenges to which his thesis relates.
The book’s aspirations are admirable, presenting a much-needed consideration of the role of disability in contemporary cities. Unfortunately, the book’s historical tangents obscure its central argument while also revealing the author’s nostalgic vision for an urban life more reminiscent of Ancient Greece than one which can engage with the myriad of contemporary challenges faced by disabled people moving through and making lives in cities.
Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image: XArtProduction on Shutterstock.
U.S. Government Seeks “Unified Vision of Unauthorized Movement”
As the immigration crisis continues and the Biden administration pursues a muscular enforcement strategy with an eye to public opinion and the 2024 presidential election, the Department of Homeland Security prospers. One obscure $6 billion program has grown silently: a network of over 1,000 surveillance towers built along America’s land borders, a system that it describes as “a unified vision of unauthorized movement.”
A broad outline of the Biden administration’s plan to solve the immigration crisis in America was unveiled this week, including 5,800 new border and immigration security officers, a new $4.7 billion Southwest Border Contingency Fund, and more emergency authority for the president to shut down the border when needed. Moving forward on these programs will “save lives and bring order to the border,” President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address last week.
Homeland Security’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request, released yesterday, includes $25.9 billion to “secure the border,” mostly through more government agents and more (and more capable) technology. Hidden in the fine print is the $6 billion tower surveillance program, one that has been in the works and growing since 2005 for years.
The system is called Integrated Surveillance Towers, and it is projected to reach “full operational capability” in 2034, a network of over 1,000 manned and unmanned towers covering the thousands of miles that make up America’s northern and southern borders. IST includes four ever-growing programs: Autonomous Surveillance Towers (AST); Integrated Fixed Towers (IFT); Remote Video Surveillance System Upgrade (RVSS-U); and the Northern Border RVSS (NB-RVSS). The deployment of various towers have been going on so long, some are already obsolete, according to the DHS 2025 budget request.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, IST detects and identifies “threats in near real time,” plugging up one gap that allows for “the exploitation of data collected by sensors, towers, drones, assets, agents, facilities, and other sources informing mission critical decisions in the field and at Headquarters.” Modern technology, including AI and “autonomous capabilities,” the Border Patrol says, is key to “keeping front-line personnel safer, more effective, and one step ahead” of border enemies.
Towers are currently being built and netted together by Elbit America (part of Israel’s Elbit Systems), Advanced Technology Systems Company, and General Dynamics. Defense Daily reported in September that DHS plans to acquire about 277 new IST towers and upgrade about 191 legacy surveillance towers in the latest set of contracts. A January press release from General Dynamics celebrates the distinction of being named one of the three recipients of a piece of a $1.8 billion indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract: “The Consolidated Tower & Surveillance Equipment (CTSE) system consists of all fixed and relocatable sensor towers, and communications and power equipment necessary for CBP [Customs and Border Protection] to perform surveillance along the southern and northern borders of the United States.” The company says it may take up to 14 years to complete.
The network of towers hosts various day and night capable cameras and radars, and can also be equipped with other sensors, including cellphone communications intercept devices, to paint a picture of hostile terrain below. The main focus of DHS today is to net all of the towers into “a single unified program” and integrate AI into the ability to detect movement and activity to create a “common operating picture.”
Though billions have been spent on the IST program, government auditors have consistently questioned whether it actually reduces unlawful border crossings. A General Accountability Office assessment from 2018 concluded that the DHS was “not yet positioned to fully quantify the impact these technologies have on its mission,” that is, whether the towers actually help to stem the flow. The GAO then recommended that DHS establish better metrics to “more fully assess … progress in implementing the Southwest Border Technology Plan and determine when mission benefits have been realized.”
A new GAO report issued last month updates progress on the IST program and says that finishing the network in Texas has been a problem. “According to the IST program manager,” the report reads, “… ease of access and willingness of property owners are key factors when considering sites for tower placement. The program manager stated that sites in the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley sectors … are still challenging because these areas need permissions from multiple landowners and road access may be an impediment.”
Though the vast majority of undocumented immigrants cross the southern border at just a handful of locations, homeland security equally seeks to cover the entire Canadian border with towers, according to DHS documents. And not only that: Homeland security is eyeing the California coast and the coastal Atlantic for future expansion, portending a ubiquitous nationwide system of ground surveillance.
ResearchAndMarkets.com’s November report on “Border Security Technologies”says that the market will exceed $70 billion globally in 2027, rising from $48 billion in 2022. “The adoption of AI-integrated surveillance towers will be critical to driving growth, with the total value of camera systems globally expected to reach $22.8 billion by 2027; up from $10.1 billion in 2022. Surveillance towers are capable of creating a virtual border, detecting, identifying, and tracking threats over great distances.”
“AI-integrated surveillance towers are at the centre of growing concern by campaign groups regarding their potential to analyse the behaviour of the general population, possibly infringing upon people’s human rights. These concerns may slow adoption unless addressed,” the report says.
The post U.S. Government Seeks “Unified Vision of Unauthorized Movement” appeared first on The Intercept.
Reforesting the Earth: The Human Drivers of Forest Conservation, Restoration, and Expansion – review
In Reforesting the Earth, Thomas K Rudel draws on historical research and case studies to examine the drivers of deforestation and proposes reforestation as an urgent natural solution to the climate crisis. The book advocates for socio-political corporatist processes and local participation to enable successful forest conservation and expansion, offering useful insights for environmentalists, policymakers and activists, writes Mohd Amin Khan.
The global climate crisis poses a serious threat to the earth’s ecosystem – its biodiversity, forests, soil fertility, water quality, and atmospheric carbon concentration. The impact on nature in turn has adverse effects on the socio-economic, cultural wellbeing and health of people across the globe, with a markedly unequal distribution of these negative effects on nations and communities. In his latest book, Thomas K Rudel emphasises the need for reforestation as a natural solution to the problems of climate change.
Reforesting the Earth aims to investigate the drivers of forest destruction and the factors influencing reforestation and the expansion of forests. It seeks to comprehend the role of human activity, including socio-political corporatist processes – policies based on the inclusive decision-making and governance of an organisation relating to other stakeholders like politicians, activists, donors, farmers, foresters, indigenous groups, and landowners – in reforestation by applying an integrated, case studies-based global data analysis. The ambition is to contribute to global climate crisis alleviation through natural solutions. The book unfolds over nine chapters, four of which discuss the historical background, concepts, theories, and analysis and the other five of which cover 19 cases studies of forest gain or loss worldwide.
The author begins with historical perspectives on the current political system: the actions and events that have precipitated the climate crisis. He then considers what would be the best approach to mitigate the adverse impacts of the crisis. He grounds his argument by elucidating the ways of living of traditional societies that evinced a respectful rather than an extractive relationship with nature. After the age of scientific discovery and innovation in Europe and the industrial revolution (roughly from the late 16th century to the 18th century), the exploitation of nature became an essential aspect of modernity, paving the way to commercialism and a capitalistic society. This shift involved major transformation in terms of socio-economic and political orders and commercial activity, resulting in rapid urbanisation, agricultural expansion, industrialisation, mass migration, population growth and mass deforestation.
This shift [to modernity] involved major transformation in terms of socio-economic and political orders and commercial activity, resulting in rapid urbanisation, agricultural expansion, industrialisation, mass migration, population growth and mass deforestation.
The great economic movement in the 20th century had corresponding environmental consequences: mass deforestation, land degradation, water and air pollution, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, and depletion of natural resources. By the 1980s, this mass destruction of forest and other natural resources began to mobilise different stakeholders in support of forest conservation.
Rudell states that when collective action has occurred, it has most frequently taken a corporatist form, at both state and societal levels. Corporatist processes involve multiple parties from different strata of society (international investors to local politicians and farmers, indigenous people, environmental activists) coming together to discuss increasing forest cover in different locations. In these discussions, the involved parties agree to compacts where some transfer funds in exchange for others’ commitment to conserving and restoring forests. The parties collaborate on these activities, holding repeated meetings throughout the process. They work together to develop and implement successive plans for forest conservation, restoration, and expansion. Through these collaborative efforts, a corporatist polity emerges. When successful, this integration of diverse groups within the forest-agriculture sector leads to an increase in forest cover and carbon sequestration. Initiatives like the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration are the result of collective corporatist actions in which have achieved substantial increments in forest cover and carbon sequestration over time: “REDD+ agreements promote natural climate solutions by exerting direct control over land uses in defined territories. Eco-certification schemes promote natural climate solutions by indirect means” (31).
As local participation, active monitoring, and good governance have a positive association with forest resurgence, weakening these factors can lead to forest loss.
Rudell extends his discussion on the role of societal corporatist processes by analysing 19 diverse case studies worldwide. This involves considering the major five themes within forest conservation and reforestation: avoided deforestation (Ecuadorian Andes Amazon), secondary forest expansions (New England and New Deal South in the USA, Northwest Portugal, and Northern Costa Rica), forest plantation (Congo, China, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile, and the USA), agroforestry-based farming (rubber, cocoa, coffee, and domestic forests), and silvopastoral practices (Upper-Lower Amazon and Nigerian Sahel). Among these 19 case studies, 12 witnessed forest gain.
The spatial distribution of the case studies reflects concerns about rapid deforestation in the Global South (due to the shifting of production firms in the Global South by Northern nations, as explained in Laurie Parsons’s Carbon Colonialism). Across the case studies, all major changes in forest cover occurred during the 20th and 21st centuries, which suggests that this change is the output of recent economic expansion.
Seven of the case studies Rudel examines recorded explicit forest loss. These losses occurred in forest plantations in Congo, Indonesia, Southeast USA, silvopastoral practices in the Lower Amazon region, and the agroforestry-based farming of rubber and cocoa in all seven. These seven case studies recorded forest loss, which can be explained by a lack of local participation in conservation programs, monitoring, and reporting, combined with weak governance resulting in corruption. As local participation, active monitoring, and good governance have a positive association with forest resurgence, weakening these factors can lead to forest loss: “Forest cover has increased in places with societal and state corporatism. It has not increased in places where states and governance have been weak or where crucial actors such as state officials or local landholders have not become participants in sectoral agreements to preserve or restore forests” (185).
Rudel advocates for the improved surveillance of forests through remote sensing, providing land rights to indigenous and local communities, eco-certification, encouraging a polycentric approach in governance, and institutionalising landscape changes and social movements of conservation to ensure reforestation projects succeed.
In conclusion, Rudel suggests that the climate crisis can be mitigated through reforestation and forest expansion with the effective engagement of socio-political corporatist arrangements. This is only possible through strong participation in forest conservation programmes and initiatives led by local and indigenous communities, environmental activities, local political parties, and both national and international non-governmental organisations. Furthermore, Rudel encourages normative changes such as reducing the demand and consumption of forest products and consequently forest losses. Similarly, declining beef consumption, seen notably in the US from 84 to 58 pounds per capita (1970-2020), holds promise for reforesting old cattle pastures. If this trend spreads globally, driven by increasing vegetarian identification in countries like India, China and the US, cattle ranchers may convert some pastures to forests. This reflects the successful reforestation observed in Costa Rica during the 1990s).
He advocates for the improved surveillance of forests through remote sensing, providing land rights to indigenous and local communities, eco-certification, encouraging a polycentric approach in governance, and institutionalising landscape changes and social movements of conservation to ensure reforestation projects succeed. The book is a valuable resource for a broad spectrum of readers, including environmentalists, climate activists, conservationists, sociologists, geographers, economists, and policymakers, as well as anyone interested in understanding and contributing to natural climate solutions to address the ongoing global climate crisis.
Acknowledgement: I am thankful to Monika and Anna D’Alton for reviewing the final draft of the book review and providing valuable suggestions and feedback which notably increases the readability of the book review.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image Credit: SOMRERK WITTHAYANANT on Shutterstock.
New ‘Lab’ MP Egan married to former 8200 Unit Israeli ‘spy’ recruiter
Right-wing MP’s partner spoke of his ‘great experience’ on pro-Israel propaganda programme, to which he recruited former spies from unit that marks its headsets for every Palestinian it kills
New right-wing Labour MP Damien Egan is married to a former IDF soldier who recruited former members of the IDF’s ‘Unit 8200’ spy unit to the ‘Excel’ propaganda programme run by the ultra-Zionist ‘Birthright Israel’ group (BI).
In a 2017 Facebook post, BI boasted of Felberbaum’s ‘important role’ in recruiting ex-8200 supervisors for ‘Excel’ interns, which Felberbaum said was ‘a great experience for me’, before talking of the ‘technological world I come from’. The article does not say that Felberbaum was a Unit 8200 member during his service, although his role recruiting former members raises the question:
Unit 8200 is the IDF’s ‘cyber-spy’ unit. Whistleblowers from the unit have revealed that members sometimes wear ‘X’s on their headsets to mark assassinations their information has facilitated – and that it targeted Palestinians for extortion and blackmail to further the government’s aims.
‘Excel’ is BI’s vehicle for taking US Jews on trips to Israel to reinforce their commitment to the occupying regime. In 2006, BI’s director of marketing said that:
[Israel] should be an integral part of every Jew’s identity
and criticised left-wing Jews who used the programme’s funding to go to help in Palestine, whom he said were weeded out if their ‘hidden agenda’ identified before going:
It is taking advantage of the Jewish money that sends people to Israel, exploiting this money to promote an agenda which is not the agenda of the people who funded Taglit
Felberbaum is not the only connection between Unit 8200 and Keir Starmer’s Labour. Starmer employs former member Assaf Kaplan as his ‘Social Listening and Organising Manager’, believed to be involved in monitoring members’ and others’ ‘online conversations’ about the party – and potentially finding information that can be used to expel anyone at odds with the regime. Kaplan removed mentions of the unit from his online profiles. He was also a ‘Facebook friend’ of disgraced Israeli embassy employee Shai Masot, who was sent home from the UK after being exposed organising campaigns against MPs Israel considered troublesome.
Egan himself is a member of the right-wing so-called ‘Jewish Labour Movement’. Unit 8200 has reportedly targeted gay Palestinians for blackmail and coercion.
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Q and A with Jonathan White on In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea
We speak to Jonathan White about his new book, In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea, which investigates how changing political conceptions of the future have impacted societies from the birth of democracy to the present.
On Tuesday 30 January 2024 LSE staff, students, alumni and prospective students can attend a research showcase where Jonathan White will discuss the book.
In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea. Jonathan White. Profile Books. 2024.
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Q: What is the value of examining democracy in terms of its orientation towards, or relationship to, the future?
My book tries to show how beliefs about the future shape expectations of who should hold power, how it should be exercised, and to what ends. The emergence of modern democracy in Europe coincided with new ways of thinking about time. In the 18th and 19th centuries, emerging ideas of a future that could be different from the present and susceptible to influence helped to spur mass political participation. Movements of the left cast the future as the place of ideals, and “isms” such as socialism and liberalism provided the basis on which strangers could find common cause. Conversely, authoritarians have used the future differently to pacify the public and keep power out of its hands. Projecting democracy, prosperity and justice into the future is one way to seek acceptance of their absence in the present.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, emerging ideas of a future that could be different from the present and susceptible to influence helped to spur mass political participation.
Q: Why is an emphasis on continuation beyond the present essential to the operation of democracy?
Modern democracy is representative democracy, and that gives the future particular significance. Why should people accept the results of elections that go against them? “Losers’ consent” is generally said to rest on the notion that victories and defeats are temporary – there will always be another chance to contest power. The expected future acts as a resource for the acceptance of adversaries and of mediating institutions and procedures. One of today’s challenges is that this sense of continuation into the future is increasingly questioned. Problems of climate change, inequality, geopolitics and social change are widely viewed as so urgent and serious that they remove any scope for error – waiting for the “next time” is not enough. Every political battle starts to feel like the final battle, to be won at all costs. This year’s US presidential election will be fought in these terms and will make clear the stresses it puts on democracy.
One of today’s challenges is that this sense of continuation into the future is increasingly questioned. Problems of climate change, inequality, geopolitics and social change are widely viewed as so urgent and serious that they remove any scope for error
Q: You credit liberal economic thinkers like Adam Smith with “pushing back the temporal horizon”. How did their ideas around the free market treat the future?
In the early Enlightenment, defenders of free trade and commerce tended to emphasise the dividends that could be expected in the short term – peace and stability, for example, and access to goods. But the legitimacy of the market order would be hard to secure if it rested only on immediate benefits. What if conditions were harsh, or wealth was concentrated in the hands of the few? Pioneers of liberal economic thought such as Smith started to promote a longer perspective, allowing them to cite benefits that would need time to materialise, such as advances in efficiency, productivity and innovation. The future could also be invoked to indicate where present-day injustices would be ironed out. What we now know as “trickle-down” economics, in which returns for the rich are embraced on the idea that they will percolate down to the many, entails pointing to the future to defend the inequalities of the present. By invoking an extended timeframe, one can seek to rationalise a system that otherwise looks dysfunctional.
Pioneers of liberal economic thought such as Smith started to promote a longer perspective, allowing them to cite benefits that would need time to materialise, such as advances in efficiency, productivity and innovation.
Q: You cite the 20th-century ascendance of technocracy, of “ideas of the future as an object of calculation, best placed in the hands of experts”. How has this impacted democratic agency?
One way to think about the future is in terms of probabilities – what outcomes are most likely and how they can be prepared for. You find this outlook in business, and in government – especially in its more technocratic forms. It brings certain things with it. A focus on prediction and problem-solving often means focusing on a relatively near horizon – a few years, months, weeks or less – as where the future can be gauged with greatest certainty. And that in turn tends to go with a consciously pragmatic form of politics, less interested in the longer timescales needed for far-reaching change. In terms of the democratic implications, a focus on probabilities tends to elevate the role of experts – economists, for example – as those able to harness particular methods of projection such as statistics. If you turn the future into an object of calculation, it tends to favour elite modes of rule.
An emphasis on prediction is also something that has shaped how politics is covered in the media. Consider the use of opinion polls to narrate change – increasingly prominent from the 1930s onwards – which encourage a spectator’s perspective. Or consider a style of reporting quite common today, whereby a journalist talks about “what I’m hearing in Washington / Westminster / Brussels”. Its focus is on garnering clues about who seems likely to do what, and what they think others will do. The accent is less on the analysis of how things could be, or should be, or indeed currently are, and more on where they seem to be heading. It is news as managers or investors might want it – and politically that often amounts to an uncritical perspective.
Q: You discuss how desires to calculate the future through military forecasting took hold during the Cold War. What are the legacies of this in governmental politics today?
One of the main functions of military forecasting during the Cold War was to second-guess the actions of enemy states – where their weaknesses lay, where they might attack, and so on. That was true in both the West and the East. But forecasting was also applied to the control of populations at home, and not just with an eye to foreign policy. Fairly early on, national security experts started to get involved in public policy and urban planning – think of initiatives such as the “war on crime” launched by US President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The outlook of the military forecaster began to transfer from the realm of geopolitics to public policy, counterinsurgency and the management of domestic protest, bringing methods of secrecy with it. Today’s forms of surveillance governance are the descendants of these forecasting techniques. And so too are conspiracy theories, which are often based on the idea that some have more knowledge of the future than they let on. Theories of 9/11 that suggest the US government saw the attack coming and deliberately let it happen, or even assisted it, are emblematic.
Q: Why is reducing social and economic inequality important to enable future-oriented political engagement from as many people as possible?
Democratic participation requires the capacity to see the present from the perspective of an imagined better future. But that presupposes the time and capacity for reflection. Those living in insecure conditions typically lack the resources and inclination to turn their eyes to the future. In exhausting jobs, the focus tends to be on getting through the day (or night): the present dominates the future. In precarious jobs or unemployment, people lack control of their lives: the future can look too unpredictable to bother with. Political engagement also depends on a sense that the problems encountered are shared with others. A workplace centred on short-term contracts on the contrary presents individuals with a constantly changing cast of peers. Other things can also undercut a sense of shared fate – personal debt, for instance, or algorithmic forms of scoring (eg, in insurance) that focus on the particularities of individual lives.
In exhausting jobs, the focus tends to be on getting through the day (or the night): the present dominates the future.
This is the sense in which the social and economic changes of the last few decades have fostered the privatisation of the future. The choices of political organisations like parties and movements are crucial in this context. They can either challenge these tendencies, developing that critical perspective on the present and a sense of shared fate – think eg, of a movement like the Debt Collective. Or they can reproduce these tendencies – eg, by treating voters as individuals who want only to maximise their own interests.
Q: What effects can crises have on how governments and citizens conceptualise and act on the future? Are current democratic political systems capable of addressing the climate crisis, the great future-oriented challenge of our time?
Crises tend to engender a sense of scarce time, and in the contemporary state that tends to bring a managerial approach to the fore. Emergencies are governed as one more problem of calculation, with a focus on concrete outcomes that can be traced from the present. The risk is that questions of justice and structural change get marginalised, as considerations that distract from the immediacy of the situation and open too many issues. Emergency government tends to prioritise short-term goals over long-term, and those which are concrete and quantifiable over those which are not.
Climate change too tends to be turned into a problem of calculation in policymaking circles. One sees it with the targets and deadlines invoked. By making net zero carbon emissions an overriding objective, authorities can marginalise considerations no less relevant to human wellbeing and environmental protection – biodiversity, global health and economic equality, for example. This is why some climate scholars see such methods as counterproductive. By emphasising a particular set of variables within a delimited timeframe, targets and deadlines get us thinking more about the near future, crowded with specificities, and less about the further horizon and the more general, incalculable goals that belong to it.
Taking the future seriously meant not hemming oneself in with false precision but setting out clear principles and organising in their pursuit.
The pitfalls of exactitude are something I try to highlight in the book. Not only is it hard to make predictions in a volatile world, but a focus on quantified targets can be counterproductive, since the facts at any moment can be bleak. As the socialists of the late 19th century understood, if the future was to be about radical change pursued over the long term, one could not afford to get lost in the details of the moment. Taking the future seriously meant not hemming oneself in with false precision but setting out clear principles and organising in their pursuit. I think this is a message that still applies. Climate change requires science and precision to grasp, but climate politics requires balancing this with a sense of uncertainty, open-endedness, and the possibility of radical change.
Note: This interview gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The interview was conducted by Anna D’Alton, Managing Editor of LSE Review of Books.
Technical Territories: Data, Subjects, and Spaces in Infrastructural Asia – review
In Technical Territories: Data, Subjects, and Spaces in Infrastructural Asia, Luke Munn explores how today’s territories are defined through data infrastructures, from undersea cables to cloud storage. Examining several cases studies in Asia, Anshul Rai Sharma finds this a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study of how these infrastructures underpin new forms of governance, shaping subjects and their everyday lives.
Technical Territories: Data, Subjects, and Spaces in Infrastructural Asia. Luke Munn. University of Michigan Press. 2023.
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Luke Munn’s Technical Territories dissects the idea of territory with a new sensibility of the digital world. Munn suggests that territories are being reworked in light of digital infrastructure – sea (undersea cables), cloud (data centres), and fog (technical standards) which together enable “tides” of surprising new territorial formations. As historically produced, “territory” means a “bounded space under control of a group”, typically a state (7). In contrast, technical territories consist of “contemporary information technologies” where “activities and identities are mediated through software, platform, and services” (14). Munn’s account thus on the one hand highlights the strategic and political aspects of such infrastructure, and on the other hand emphasises that territorial dynamics transcend continental land masses and borders of nation states. In this sense, Munn’s work is an attempt at an ethnography of power through the unique lens of cables and clouds-systems.
Munn’s account […] highlights the strategic and political aspects of such infrastructure, and […] emphasises that territorial dynamics transcend continental land masses and borders of nation states
Digital infrastructures are conceptualised as “nodes” that are “situated and siteless, embedded and extended, within and beyond” (28). One feels compelled to ask: Where are the boundaries? Instead of treating this ambiguity as a constraint, the author invites us to make this the object of the study, an exercise in making sense of these dense networks and what they imply for citizenship and territory. This is a complicated exercise, as a host of issues are at play simultaneously – jurisdiction, political authority, and economic ties. The book traverses technical as well as human geographies, reminding one of Doreen Massey’s concept of place as perpetual intersections.
The power tussle over digital infrastructure between nation states, companies, governments, and civil society is felt in the everyday lives of individuals.
Munn recognises that the power tussle over digital infrastructure between nation states, companies, governments, and civil society is felt in the everyday lives of individuals. He thus makes a key methodological choice to centre on individual data subjects in his analysis, including a case study of Hong Kong narratives. These accounts reflect the unease with networked technologies, with new geographic knowledge productions through three-fold issue of transmission, capture and processing of personal data. Visceral democratic protests are pitted against the “digitization of bodies” (43) which underscores the precarious nature of individual identity, autonomy, and privacy.
Munn identifies the imperial use of telegraph cables to convey critical information, hinting at the history of technological use for colonial purposes.
A central point in the book is that infrastructure works for those who build it – it is a source of power. Munn is thus not only concerned with connections but with the ownership of these connections. The emphasis is merely on spatialised power, but also on how this power is made operational. In a deeply political account of cable construction across the globe, Munn identifies the imperial use of telegraph cables to convey critical information, hinting at the history of technological use for colonial purposes. To understand where such tendencies are headed now, we must move through sea (cables), cloud (computing) and fog (technical standards). The reader is encouraged to see how “the imperial and terrestrial coexists with the technical” (102). The current fierce competition between global firms to lay claim to such territories is described vividly, bringing forth the central concern: even though the firms are competing in the global market, like any other geopolitical tool, this market is deeply embedded in government subsidies, intelligence, and national interests.
In light of this frame to global competition in digital infrastructure, a considerable portion of the text is dedicated to unpacking “Sinicization” (30). A comprehensive analysis of the emerging Chinese influence on digital technologies. Channelling Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Munn makes the cables of communication visible, showing how vulnerable they are to disruption. A key realisation in the case study of Huawei is the disproportionate impact of China (the boundaries between state-owned companies and private firms fade here) on cable construction project. This is important as digital infrastructures are seen as “ontological in shaping our wider political environment” (60). Munn places such infrastructure in the centre of a meta-struggle between X actors on one side trying to make technology align with registers of rule of law, national sovereignty, and individual rights inherent in democracy, and Y actors on the other side relying on technology for surveillance and national security.
[Christmas I]sland’s isolation is employed for a dual purpose: restricting the movement of detained individuals while also acting as a hub for undersea cable projects that enhance communication networks.
The concept of territories as a “framing device” (7) is constantly invoked to probe the relationship between technologies and power. The author eventually argues that territories, in their myriad forms, “imping[e] on lives of the marginal while enhancing the agencies of those deemed central” (79). This is illustrated through the detailed analysis of Christmas Island in Australia. The island’s isolation is employed for a dual purpose: restricting the movement of detained individuals while also acting as a hub for undersea cable projects that enhance communication networks. This dichotomy highlights the tension between hindering human mobility and promoting the flow of information. A parallel tension, between the “appropriation of land, the exploitation of the environment, and the violence done to bodies” and the unequal ways in which “technologies mediate information and facilitate extraction” (99) is presented by using Singapore as a case study.
The book touches upon national laws governing data collection and circulation, such as China’s Cybersecurity law, the US CLOUD Act, and Hong Kong’s Personal Data Ordinance. While Munn suggests these laws may not offer sufficient protection against data flow, he doesn’t delve deep into evidence-based analysis of the legislation. However, he adeptly discusses the intricacies of cloud architecture for readers. The penultimate chapter shows how cloud-based computing and edge-computing (processing data locally) operate differently yet come together as a system of control. The chapter echoes Foucault’s genealogy of power to understand how the old and more explicit forms of governance are replaced by the new models such as “cloud-edge formation of power” (125) demanding a complete revision of concepts like Decentralisation.
Munn’s work provides a new, imaginative framework to unpack relationalities between infrastructural operations, flow of capital, and flow of information
Munn’s work challenges readers to intertwine infrastructural and political theory with contemporary geopolitics. Its uniqueness stems from its narrative on the transformative impact of modern infrastructure on territorial boundaries. Technical territories are deeply political; they amplify state power and undermine the agency of individuals. Instead of being neutral models, these are infrastructures that “push and pull, ordering the world and jostling with others in a bid for primacy and position” (9). Munn’s work provides a new, imaginative framework to unpack relationalities between infrastructural operations, flow of capital, and flow of information – a triad that becomes increasingly important as digital governance becomes a dominant idea across democracies.
The author is grateful for inputs from Tekla Marie Emborg at the University of Groningen.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Connect world on Shutterstock.
From the Strip to the Border
How Israel profits from the arming of the U.S.-Mexico border.
PSC suspends Manchester branch for supporting Gaza’s right to resist
PSC national secretary removes elected officers from posts pending ‘investigation’
A Palestinian flag at last weekend’s pro-Gaza demo in Manchester (image: S Walker)
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has suspended four officers of its Manchester branch for statements supporting the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation, according to new revelations by Electronic Intifada‘s Asa Winstanley.
The suspension came around two weeks after Manchester PSC displayed a banner supporting Palestinian resistance at a pro-Palestine march and posted an article to its website supporting Palestinian ‘freedom fighters’ in their action against Israel. Manchester is reportedly one of the group’s most active branches.
Israel has killed as many as ten thousand Gazan civilians in four weeks since the attack, around half of them children – and children are now being killed at a horrific rate of around four hundred a day, according to UNICEF.
Right-wing groups and publications attacked PSC Manchester’s support for Palestinian resistance and the criticism appears to have spooked PSC national’s leadership, as national secretary Ben Soffa emailed the Manchester officers, each individually, notifying them of their suspension and telling them that they “must therefore cease from taking actions in the name of your PSC branch whilst your membership remains suspended”, because the earlier posts may “exhibit hateful or discriminatory behaviour, or significantly undermine PSC’s ability to function as a welcoming and inclusive organisation“.
The posts are eerily reminiscent of the Labour regime’s Orwellian suspension letters telling anti-racists they are suspended or expelled because their actions supposedly compromise the party’s ‘ability to fight racism’. PSC also published a post to its website declaring the Manchester branch’s statements as ‘unacceptable’ – and then one declaring that the branch may have endorsed “deliberate killing of civilians [and] hostage taking.”
The move to disown and suspend the Manchester officers is also reminiscent of the Corbyn Labour party’s error in attempting to mollify pro-Israel groups, despite advice that complaints and criticisms were not being made in good faith and that concessions and moves to suspend members would only validate the bad-faith campaign – advice that was proven to be right by several subsequent documentaries and the findings of the Starmer-commissioned (and then ignored) Forde inquiry – as well as by Winstanley’s forensic book.
As Winstanley notes, the reality of events in Israel on 7 October may be at severe variance with the ‘atrocity propaganda’ that continues to be pushed about them, particularly when Israeli survivors of the day have told their own media that they were well treated by the Hamas fighters and that many and perhaps most deaths were caused by IDF bullets – and that doctors and bereaved families have expressed alarm at the Israeli government’s haste to bury the bodies of those killed even when they have not yet been identified:
This demand follows growing concern from the families of the #hostages and missing persons that burials are being hastened for religious reasons – without exhausting all identification measures.
— Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) (@PHRIsrael) October 30, 2023
Winstanley writes:
But what really happened on 7 October is hotly contested. Hamas itself has denied targeting civilians, and some Israeli survivors of that day have insisted that many of the civilians died at the hands of Israeli forces.
Until Israel allows an independent international investigation, we are unlikely to learn the full truth. But it may already be too late for that – Israel appears to be literally burying the evidence.
Ben Soffa still works for Labour as the party’s head of “digital organising”, despite Keir Starmer’s persistent refusal to condemn Israel’s mass killing of civilians or even to call for a ceasefire. According to Winstanley, Soffa refused to say whether Palestinians have a right to armed resistance – a right protected under international law – or to say whether, in his role with Labour, he works with Assaf Kaplan, the former Israeli cyberspy with ‘Unit 8200’, the Israeli anti-Palestinian electronic surveillance unit whose operatives reportedly marked their headsets with an ‘x’ for every Palestinian they had helped kill. Instead, Soffa responded:
That is something that I’m not going to comment on.
PSC national commented that targeting civilians is against international law but eventually conceded that it “fully recognises the rights of oppressed and occupied people to resist, including through the use of armed resistance within the framework of international law.” It did not confirm whether it accepts the Israeli government’s account of what happened on 7 October or comment on Soffa’s refusal to say whether he works with Kaplan in his Labour duties.
The above details have been shared at the invitation of the original author. Follow Asa Winstanley’s substack here.
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What Can the UK Teach the World About AI Safety?
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The UK government's AI Safety Summit wraps up after hosting global leaders and big tech representatives at WWII codebreaking site Bletchley Park.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set the stage for the summit in a speech last week as he explained the risks society faces. He briefly mentioned biases, misuse and went on to describe how "AI could make it easier to build chemical or biological weapons," how "terrorist groups could use AI to spread fear and destruction on an even greater scale," and that "humanity could lose control of AI completely, through the kind of AI sometimes referred to as 'superintelligence'."
As the Government positions Britain as a global leader in AI safety, what are they doing to safeguard their citizens from the harms of artificial intelligence?
The Threats Right Now
A £100 million task force, composed of researchers and academics has been assembled to address the existential threat highlighted in last week's warning. In his speech, Rishi Sunak wanted to clarify, "This is not a risk that people need to be losing sleep over right now."
As the task force takes care of these serious threats, what about the risks that are here right now?
Back in August, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published a white paper detailing their "pro-innovation" approach to regulation. The paper outlines a cross-cutting framework guided by common non-statutory principles, where there will be no new legislation introduced.
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This approach is designed to leverage existing laws. 'Cross-cutting' refers to rules that apply across all sectors, such as the Equality Act, a horizontal piece of legislation. Sector-specific laws, like The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, are considered vertical. The premise is that when both horizontal and vertical intersect or overlap, they should inherently safeguard citizens when adhering to the Government’s recommended principles:
- Safety, security, and robustness
- Appropriate transparency and explainability
- Fairness
- Accountability and governance
- Contestability and redress
This approach was welcomed by tech giant Google, who, when giving evidence to the Select Committee for Science Innovation and Technology, stated, "From our experience, we believe AI regulation should be principles-based and implemented on a non-statutory basis," in response to an earlier draft of the paper.
EXCLUSIVE
Transparency Seems to Die a Death at the Government’s AI Summit
Why won’t the Government tell the public who’s attending – and who’s being left out in the cold?
Manasa Narayanan
How would these principles work in practice?
Using the Government's recommendations, researchers at the Ada Lovelace Institute worked with law firm AWO and stress-tested some hypothetical, yet probable scenarios that citizens will face in the near future. This included:
- The use of an AI system to manage shifts in a workplace.
- The use of an AI system to analyse biometric data as part of a mortgage application.
- The deployment of an AI chatbot, based on a foundation model, by the Department of Work and Pensions to provide advice to benefits applicants.
The legal analysis graded the effectiveness of the safeguards based on their level of harm prevention, transparency, and redress in each scenario. The overall score fell short, with most earning a below-medium score. The Ada Lovelace Institute reports that even when protective measures are in place, active enforcement is not consistent.
AWO found that cross-cutting regulation would not be feasible. "They do not have sufficient powers, resources, or sources of information. They have not always made full use of the powers they have."
Watering Down GDPR
One of the most robust regulations currently in place to prevent AI harm is GDPR, which the UK adopted during its EU membership. However, this is set to change with the introduction of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which aims to 'reform' the rules. DSIT stated "the Bill aims to reduce pointless paperwork for businesses" and "free British businesses from unnecessary red tape."
Some relevant changes will include:
- A lower threshold for organisations to refuse a Subject Access Request (the request by an individual to see the data an organisation holds about them).
- Removing the independence of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
- . The government will be able to issue instructions and intervene with the regulatory functions of the ICO.
- The bill removes individuals' rights not to be subjected to automated decision-making.
- Data can be transferred to other countries that do not have particularly strong data protection laws.
- The definition of 'scientific research', a category that has special provisions with GDPR, is expanded to include 'commercial activity'.
Open Rights Group (ORG) said in a statement these changes "will weaken our data protection rights and give more power to the state and corporations." Policy manager Abigail Burke of ORG told The Guardian that the Bill "greatly expanded the situations in which AI and other automated decision-making was permitted and made it even more difficult to challenge or understand when it was being used."
Automated Social Control: the Biases of the Algorithms
Almaz Ohene reports on how real-life structures of oppression are being replicated online through automated moderation and censorship
Almaz Ohene
In his pre-summit speech last week, Rishi Sunak highlighted the benefits of AI, "In the public sector, we're clamping down on benefit fraudsters… and using AI as a co-pilot to help clear backlogs and radically speed up paperwork." The technology he's referencing is a £70 million Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service used in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for Universal Credit.
The DWP isn't the first to be an early adopter. Several other departments have embraced the technology:
- The Home Office made use of an algorithm they called 'visa streaming'. It was scrapped after legal pressure from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants asking the Court to declare the streaming algorithm unlawful.
- The Metropolitan Police have adopted live facial recognition. Cameras take images of people in public places and compare them to a database of known persons of interest. The practice was banned in South Wales when a Court found it violated people's right to privacy according to the European Convention on Human Rights.
- In education, Ofqual, England's exam regulatory body, replaced A-level exams with an algorithm that adjusted teacher-predicted grades based on each school's historical data. This resulted in 40% of students receiving lower than anticipated grades, disproportionately affecting those from less-privileged schools and benefiting those from affluent ones. The algorithm was then ditched and replaced by the original predictions.
The Government reflected on their previous use of technology. Following a 2021 report from the National Audit Office (NAO), the government admitted on their digital transformation roadmap that “previous attempts at digital transformation have had mixed success.”
The Citizens has been delving into the figures involved in the UK’s AI task force – can we trust them to keep us safe?
Florence Wildblood
Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, stated, "There is a gap between what government intends to achieve and what it delivers to citizens," he added, "which wastes taxpayers' money and delays improvements in public services." He concluded, "If government is to improve its track record in delivering digital business change, it must learn the hard-won lessons of experience."
Recognising that there are lessons to be learned, a safety summit dedicated to the use of artificial intelligence is a notable gesture. However as the date drew closer, there was little transparency on what and who was involved. Details only emerged a day before the summit, after an open letter was addressed to the Prime Minister revealing the abundance of Big Tech attendees, while advocates for the vulnerable and workers were shut out.
On the day of the summit, the media were stationed in a designated centre away from the main events, and journalists were only allowed to roam the grounds under supervision.
With the level restriction for the average person, Britons can only speculate on exactly what lessons the international guests take back to their home nations.
Who’s Watching The Watcher’s?
We all know that we're being watched, listened to, tracked, traced and monitored.
Who ensures those people in positions of power and those with corporate monopolies remain accountable?
The post Who’s Watching The Watcher’s? appeared first on Renegade Inc.