The Scent of Lavendar: Israeli AI, Surveillance, and Subject Formation

I am at work on a second book-length project, tentatively titled “The Scent of Lavendar: Israeli AI, Surveillance, and Subject Formation.” Here, I take the insights of subject formation in analog sites— prisons and torture facilities—to the digital realm.  A central tenant of counter-revolutionary theories is the desire to know everything: to collect as much information as possible on the controlled population. Contemporary AI and surveillance technologies in Israel-Palestine complicate this story. Israeli means of surveillance not only collect information but affect subjectivities. In this project, I study the multi-layered contexts of surveillance and resistance in Israel-Palestine, to get at a broader story of how subjects are made and dominated. The contexts this project unpacks include the use of AI machines such as Lavendar in Gaza, facial recognition technologies towards Palestinians in Hebron, surveillance of Closed-Circuit TV in East Jerusalem, the evolution of the use of drones from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to present day deployments by the military, settlers, and NGOs, Social media monitoring, and phone hacking. Combined, these technologies of the self tell a story about how control works through subjectivity.

Abolishing Productive Torture

Abstract

From 1948 until 2023, Israeli torture practices have become more sophisticated: they are no longer only openly violent but, while not completely departing from violence, have shifted towards the use of the tortured persons’ actions and relations. Testimonies collected by the Israeli NGO the Public Committee against Torture in Israel gesture towards this shift in the axis of sophistication and a correlated shift in another axis, that of subject formation. Twenty-first century Israeli torture affects subjectivity by attempting to stir the tortured person away from politics, build a fractured society, and sow suspicion and mistrust. Thus, alongside its repressive traits, torture is also aimed at the production of subjectivity through action and interaction. In so doing, Israeli torture expands analyses of torture that view its contemporary characteristics as “lite,” “psychological,” “no-touch,” or “stealthy” to include a view of torture as a political technology of domination qua subject formation.

“To Make the State Look in More Zionist Eyes:” Settler Drones, Waxing Sovereignty

Abstract:

According to Wendy Brown, the diminishing power of the nation state in the twenty-first century is connected to the construction of walls such as those on the US-Mexico border or in Palestine. Brown’s argument, as well as her book’s title, is “Walled States, Waning Sovereignty.” As opposed to walls, surveillance drones operate differently. Among other traits, they are mobile, can “see,” “speak” (that is, sound the voice of the drone operator or a recording), and make noise. What do the technological advancements in the fields of surveillance of the twenty-first century, as manifested in Israeli-operated drones, teach about the workings of sovereignty? This article grapples with this question building on Brown’s oeuvre as well as interviews with Palestinians under drone surveillance and Israelis that operate drones. These interviews reveal how Israeli settlers, Israeli soldiers, forces employed by Israeli regional councils, and supremacist NGOs operate drones to further goals of domination. I argue that Israeli drones manifest what I call a “waxing sovereignty:” Rather than a weakening of the state, surveillance drones manifest a revitalization of the state by shifting actors.

Foucault’s Counter-limitative Critical Practice (forthcoming with New Political Science)

Abstract

Recent advancements in the study of Foucauldian genealogy view it as “problematization” and as “possibilizing:” opening a path towards change. Analyzing genealogy from Foucault’s practical endeavors paints a more elaborate picture. Foucault’s writings on the prisons information group, the Iranian uprising, and gay liberation elucidate the transgressive transfigurative aspects of genealogy.  What I call the anti-limitative critical practice of “transgressive transfiguration” is the positive creation of a different reality based on the genealogical investigation of the current reality. These endeavors show that genealogy is not only a site of problematization or one that is possibilizing. It also creates a change in reality. What Foucault calls a “transfiguring play of freedom” is based on challenging limits placed on people that are presented as universal. This anti-limitative critical practice expands our understanding of genealogy and at the same time provides the normative compass Foucault was so often accused of lacking.