Abstract:
In the past two decades, the world has witnessed a rapid growth in the deployment of
unmanned aerial vehicles in conflicts and warfares, notably in the U.S. war on terrorism.
However, much of the discourse surrounding drone deployment in conflict focuses only on
the human end while neglecting the network composed of both human and nonhuman actors,
which enables drone deployment. The existing drone literature often examines the legality
and ethics of drone strikes, undergoing a Just War Framework, with little examines the
materiality of actors involved in a drone strike and how they came together in delivering a
strike. This thesis then turns to this aspect of drone literature in which limited studies has
been done. This thesis then revisits the Uruzgan helicopter attack that occurred in 2010,
applying the actor-network theory. Through asking how a drone strike materialise through the
screen of a drone, this thesis first connects the actors, both human and nonhuman, in a drone
strike. Then through the reading of the Uruzgan helicopter attack under an actor-network
theory lens, this thesis argues that material objects in drone deployment both transfer and
transform the political power and plays an active role in producing targets. This thesis also
argues investigation after the occurrence of an accident as an actor enables the opening of the
"blackbox", revealing the inside work of a drone strike and allows the drone vision to
continue to live among the public discourse; therefore, such investigations need to include
narrative outside the military, too.
