Delf Rothe’s peer-reviewed article „Seeing like a Satellite: Remote Sensing and the Ontological Politics of Environmental Security“ has been published in the latest issue of Security Dialogue. The article furthers the debate on environmental security by highlighting the role of visual technologies such as satellite remote sensing in the construction of threats and risks. A theoretical framework around the notion of visual assemblage is developed that accounts for the hybrid, socio-technical character of visual technologies like satellite remote sensing, and shows how these render environmental risks and threats visible, intelligible, and thereby governable. Equipped with this framework, the article traces the development of a visual assemblage of satellite remote sensing from the early days of the Cold War until today and reveals its close co-evolution with environmental security discourses and practices.
Article link: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967010617709399