By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 02:00:22 +0000

A forceful plea for classic anthropological virtues, serious fieldwork and attention to detail. We all need to remember Victor Turner’s maxim that theory is only valuable when it suggests fresh insights into what the field experience discovers. Theory, in and of itself, is only the stiffened mass of starch in which occasional tasty raisins can be found (My North American image is cold, leftover oatmeal, stuck in a fridge overnight. What’s yours?)

By: Michael Richardson

Michael Richardson — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 09:18:11 +0000

Since the original article was written in an equal spirit of polemic, I have little cause for complaint. Far be it from me, as “a certain kind of domesticated scholar,” to take issue with some of the more pointed objects you raised based on ethnographic fieldwork. For the most part, I don’t disagree with much that you say and a lot of it is helpful. My article deliberately covered a ludicrous amount of ground and made a lot of sweeping statements and unexpected (your “incompatible”) comparisons as a kind of necessary rhetorical move. The intention was not brush off or dismiss the good stuff that happens with drones (more that a lack of space led to the too-glibly Foucaultian remark you mention) , but to kind of step away from the object itself and think about what I think is a particular kind of “drone” logic that the figure of the drone helps us see. In my main work around drones (of which this is really an ancillary and perhaps even incompatible piece), I’m much more interested in the narrower, focused and more grounded questions that you raise. I suspect that despite what the article on “drone capitalism” suggests, we’ll find quite a lot of common ground soon enough.

Comments on: Drone Capitalism

By: John McCreery

By: Michael Richardson