Auchter, Jessica. The Ocular Politics of Targeting: Disembodiment and the Perpetrator Gaze in the War on Terror.

In her article, Jessica Auchter analyses the politics of ‘seeing’ to scrutinize how civilian casualties are obscured in the War on Terror, highlighting the complexities of distance, visibility, and the role of the body in relation to drone technology.  She argues that such technology categorizes civilian bodies and deaths as “collateral damage” and determines potential targets through racialized algorithms that determines ‘killable’ groups (534–536). Hence Auchter’s discussion builds on a Foucauldian notion of biopolitics and positions itself in the ongoing discussions of necropolitics, as first coined by Achille Mbembe. Auchter’s article delves into the asymmetrical viewing and the dehumanization of individuals in view screen of the drone operators, as well as the paradoxes involved in claims of civilian protection through technological precision.  

The ‘drone gaze,’ Auchter argues, shifts the ocular power, as it has the ability to look everywhere and strike without being easily detected beforehand, thus troubling the “distance-intimacy continuum of warfare (536). This, she argues, creates an “aerial panopticon” (537). Through its algorithmic categorizing the technology structurally dehumanizes its victims, reducing them to data and their deaths to “bugsplats” (538). Auchter too illustrates that military language of ‘hunting,’ ‘winning,’ and ‘bugsplats’ dehumanizes and renders invisible, leaving drone operators and the public to be presented with a one-sided form of intimacy. Such asymmetrical ‘looking’ furthermore contradicts the Laws of Armed Conflict, as those captured by its gaze are unable to look back and surrender (539). Notably, Auchter highlights that casualty reports released by the Pentagon obscure the true death tolls, which are on average “31 times higher than it was admitting” (540). The circulation of drone killing footage too perpetuates the violence of its ‘looking,’ setting the ‘standard’ for drone operators to uphold (541). 

Furthermore, the drone technology, she notes, troubles the placement of “ethical responsibility” as this is placed onto the drone itself, rather than its creators and operators (536).  Hence Auchter’s article addresses questions of the perpetrator gaze in contemporary warfare, thereby complicating our understanding of perpetrators and ‘perpetration’ with regard to modern technology, raising questions of ‘responsibility’ and accountability.  

Auchter’s article can be useful for those working in the field of perpetrator studies as it provides a critical analysis of the ocular politics of targeting in the War on Terror, shedding light on the complexities and ethical implications of drone warfare. It offers insights into the ways in which technology and visual politics intersect with perpetration, dehumanization, and the politics of violence against civilians. Additionally, Auchter’s exploration of the perpetrator gaze and its relation to scopic regimes in global conflict prompts readers to reconsider the implications of technological mediation of violence and the ways in which the perpetrator gaze operates in the context of contemporary warfare. 

Jessica Auchter is professor of international studies at École supérieure d’études internationales. Her research focuses on the entanglements of international politics, state violence, and visual culture, often positioning her research in a decolonial or feminist framework. 

Author of this entry: Mohana Zwaga. 

Auchter, Jessica. “The Ocular Politics of Targeting: Disembodiment and the Perpetrator Gaze in the War on Terror.” Media, War & Conflict, vol 16, no 4, 2023, pp 534-547.