Death By ‘Double-Tap’: (Undoing) Racial Logics in the Age of Drone Warfare

Kapadia

This talk examines the contemporary expansion of drone strikes and extra-judicial “targeted killings” in the context of US global counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns. My principal goal is to illuminate the differential “disposition matrix” of misery produced by the state and to interrogate the questions conjured by this violence for coalitional politics in the drone age. The talk unfolds in three parts. The first section offers a primer on the geopolitical and racial logics of drone wars as the latest installment in a long history of US military presence in the Middle East and South Asia. The second section seeks to intervene into emergent drone criticism by prioritizing an account of the destabilizing effects of these militarized technologies on social relations for civilians living under the constant threat of aerial bombardment. Finally, the talk concludes that the durability of the drone forces us to contend with and challenge the ethical common sense of Washington on the conduct of war and the grammar used to make sense of US state violence. I assert that drones are not exceptional but endemic to racial domination and capitalist exploitation at the heart of US empire. Their expanded deployment both at home and abroad should be of central concern to activists and scholars of race, war, and empire.

Ronak K. Kapadia is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and affiliated faculty in Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received a PhD in American Studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University (2012), an MA in American Studies from NYU (2008), and a BA with honors and distinction in comparative ethnic studies from Stanford University (2005). Previously, he was the 2012-2013 University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside and the 2011-12 Riley Scholar-in-Residence in the Program in Race and Ethnic Studies at Colorado College.

A cultural theorist of race, sex, and empire in the late 20th and early 21st century United States, Kapadia is completing a book about the interface between contemporary visual media and US global counterinsurgency warfare in South Asia and the Middle East titled Insurgent Aesthetics: Race, Security, and the Sensorial Life of Empire (under contract, Duke University Press). With Katherine McKittrick and Simone Browne, he is co-editor of the forthcoming special issue of Surveillance and Society on race and surveillance, and his work also appears in Asian American Literary Review, South Asian Diaspora, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and edited volumes including: Shifting Borders: America and the Middle East/North Africa (Ed. Alex Lubin, American University of Beirut Press, 2014), Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader (Duke University Press, 2016), and With Stones in Our Hands: Reflections on Racism, Muslims and US Empire (Ed. Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana, University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming 2017).

Kapadia’s research has been supported by the NYU Henry MacCracken Fellowship, the Mellon/ACLS Fellowship, the Consortium for Faculty Diversity in the Liberal Arts Colleges, the NYU Dean’s Dissertation Award, the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, the UIC Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy Faculty Fellowship, and the UIC Great Cities Institute Faculty Scholarship. Outside of academe, he is a former board member of FIERCE, a member-led community organizing working to build the leadership and power of queer and trans youth of color in New York City and Sage Community Health Collective, a worker-owned health and healing justice collective in Chicago.

Categories:

Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?

Findings from a UIC Great Cities Institute report on unemployment in the city are cited in Chicago magazine’s profile of Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education, and his current efforts here to create an employment program for young African American men.

When he left President Obama’s cabinet last December, after seven years, Duncan, 51, had no shortage of options. But whatever he did next, one thing was nonnegotiable: It would be in his hometown of Chicago, where he spent his childhood playing pickup basketball and later served as CEO of public schools. After all, the city, his nest, is in crisis. Murders are at a 20-year high, and a staggering 46 percent of black men ages 20 to 24 are both out of work and out of school, according to an often-quoted study by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute.

Full Story from Chicago Magazine »

Great Cities Institute attends Habitat III, Taking Place in Quito, Ecuador

Workers prepare an event venue before the Habitat III conference begins in Quito, 13 October. (Habitat III Secretariat)

Workers prepare an event venue before the Habitat III conference begins in Quito, 13 October. (Habitat III Secretariat)

Great Cities Institute Director Teresa Córdova and Timothy Imeokparia traveled to Quito, Ecuador to attend the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, known as Habitat III, along with 45,000 other registrants from around the world. Heads of State, ministers and high level representatives along with participants from local government, civil society, indigenous groups, academia and scientific community, private sector, professionals and practitioners, and other stakeholders have gathered to address the pressing housing and sustainability issues related to rapid urbanization around the world.

Habitat III Village is the location for plenaries, side panels and other events and also includes a wide array of exhibits and activities. The sharing of information and ideas is plentiful.

At each of the previous two UN Conferences on Human Settlements, declarations were adopted. Habitat I took place in Vancouver, Canada, May 31-June 11 1976. Twenty years later, Habitat II occurred in Istanbul, Turkey, June 3-14.

Foremost in the Habitat III agenda is the adoption of the Quito Declaration, named the New Urban Agenda. While the document is non-binding, it establishes a set of principles and priorities related to growing urban areas across the globe. Contained in the document is a statement of the issues, a shared vision, principles, a call for action, implementation plan and sections on “Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Prosperity and Opportunity for all,” “Environmentally Sustainable and Resilient Urban Development,” “Effective Implementation,” and “Building Urban Governance Structures.” Among the document’s many powerful statements, we highlight a couple:

We recognize that sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, with full and productive employment and decent work for all, is a key element of sustainable urban and territorial development and that cities and human settlements should be places of equal opportunities allowing people to live healthy, productive, prosperous, and fulfilling lives.

We will anchor the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda in inclusive, implementable, and participatory urban policies, as appropriate, to mainstream sustainable urban and territorial development as part of integrated development strategies and plans, supported, as appropriate, by national, sub-national, and local institutional and regulatory frameworks, ensuring that they are adequately linked to transparent and accountable finance mechanisms.

Among the many interesting events and panels, we attended a panel sponsored by El Ministerio de Inclusión Económica y Social, Lídice Larrea. Our friend, Diego Auelstia, presented on Economia Poplar y Solidaría y Exportaciones ¿Imposible Conciliación? This very interesting panel explored strategies on building inclusive economies.

Parallel to Habitat III, there are conferences taking place. Both Teresa and Tim are making presentations at Pontifica Católica Universidad de Ecuador (PUCE). Teresa is presenting on building an inclusive economy for young people and Tim is participating on a panel on the urban economy, moderated by Diego Aulestia.

With so many people here concerned about the future of urban areas, we can be optimistic about the possibilities, even while we are aware of the difficulties of implementation. The sense of urgency permeates.

Quito itself is an amazing place and the people are wonderfully warm. We hope to bring back some chocolate and coffee with us.

Premier of “Count Me In” Documentary

“Count Me In,” the first in-depth documentary about participatory budgeting, a burgeoning national movement that started in Chicago, tells a rare good-news story about money and voting, tracking the efforts of regular Chicagoans who are rolling up their sleeves to make an impact in their neighborhoods. A special screening in Chicago will be followed by a discussion of the film and the future of participatory budgeting. The film, produced by Chicago-based Sommer Filmworks LLC, presented nationally by WTTW Chicago and distributed by the National Educational Telecommunications Association, will be available to public television stations in October 2016.

Participatory budgeting is one answer to the question, how do you get citizens, who have become cynical about politics and frustrated with voting, involved in the decision-making process about what government does and how things get done? The film shows residents pitching ideas for a variety of projects, including street repairs, bike lanes and community gardens. Projects get researched, proposals crafted, and at the end, the entire community is invited to vote. “Count Me In” explores the ups and downs of this new tool, offering an engaging, unvarnished look at what it will take to revitalize democracy from the ground up, not just in Chicago, but across the nation.

After the screening a panel will lead a discussion of the film including:

  • Count Me In Director and Producer Ines Sommer
  • Thea Crum, Director of Neighborhoods Initiative, UIC Great Cities Institute
  • Amanda Cortés, Assistant to Alderman Rick Muñoz, 22nd Ward
  • Joann Williams, community activist from 22nd Ward, featured in the film

WHEN:         
Screening
2 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Panel Discussion
3:15 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Saturday, October 15, 2016

WHERE:      
Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 E. Washington Street, Chicago, IL

For more information on “Count Me In” go to: www.countmeinmovie.com

The October 15th premier is free and open to the public but RSVPs are encouraged at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-screening-discussion-count-me-in-tickets-27415907718

Categories:

From worst-case scenario to participatory plan: Lessons from a Mexican village for community development and planning education

TillyKennedy

Marie Kennedy is Professor Emerita in Community Planning, University of Massachusetts Boston, and a former Visiting Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California Los Angeles.  Throughout her academic career she has combined the roles of activist and scholar, working in and writing about community development, planning education and participatory action research.  Over the years, Marie has worked with and/or written about community and worker organizations and social movements in the Greater Boston area, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Palestine and Nicaragua.  She chairs the board of Venice Community Housing and serves on the advisory committees of Grassroots International and of Planners Network.

Chris Tilly, Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, studies labor and inequality in the US and global context, with a particular focus on bad jobs and how to make them better.  Tilly’s books include Half a Job: Bad and Good Part-Time Jobs in a Changing Labor Market; Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women’s Work, Women’s Poverty; Work Under Capitalism: Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America; The Gloves-Off Economy: Labor Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market, and Are Bad Jobs Inevitable?

Categories:

Participatory Planning in Action: Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly

10-11-16 Blog

Please join us this Friday for a talk by Professors Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly. They have been planning professors for many years, spending much of their time in the Boston area. In more recent years they have been at UCLA where Professor Tilly ran the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and Professor Kennedy, who has always done participatory planning, is now Emeritus.  They were both early and committed members of Planners Network. On Friday, they will share insights from their recent participatory planning project in a village in Mexico.

Marie Kennedy is Professor Emerita in Community Planning, University of Massachusetts Boston, and a former Visiting Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California Los Angeles.  Throughout her academic career she has combined the roles of activist and scholar, working in and writing about community development, planning education and participatory action research.  Over the years, Marie has worked with and/or written about community and worker organizations and social movements in the Greater Boston area, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Palestine and Nicaragua.  She chairs the board of Venice Community Housing and serves on the advisory committees of Grassroots International and of Planners Network.

Chris Tilly, Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, studies labor and inequality in the US and global context, with a particular focus on bad jobs and how to make them better.  Tilly’s books include Half a Job: Bad and Good Part-Time Jobs in a Changing Labor Market; Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women’s Work, Women’s Poverty; Work Under Capitalism: Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America; The Gloves-Off Economy: Labor Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market, and Are Bad Jobs Inevitable?

From worst-case scenario to participatory plan: Lessons from a Mexican village for community development and planning education will take place at 2 p.m. in the Great Cities Institute conference room, this Friday, October 14. Join us for what is sure to be an intriguing discussion.

Which Chicago is your neighborhood in?

Photo by Thinkstock

Photo by Thinkstock

An independent report co-produced by James Lewis, senior research specialist in the UIC Great Cities Institute, is featured in a Crain’s Chicago Business blog. The report and column detail Chicago census data on income that outlines which neighborhoods fall into three areas – rising, idling, and declining- in recent years and over the past half century.

Though household income is growing smartly in parts of Chicago, a decades-old decline continues elsewhere, with the rest of the city stagnating in an awkward middle.

That’s the gist of some intriguing new data from a pair of veteran local demographers that underlines as well as any effort I’ve seen the continuing transition of Chicago into not two but three different cities over the past half-century—one thriving in the world economy, the second stuck in Rust Belt decline and the third not quite belonging to either.

Full Story from Crain’s Chicago Business »