Feminist politics, drones and the fight against the ‘Femicide State’ in Mexico

Abstract

This article analyzes the ways in which social collectives in Mexico have been developing socio-digital networks (combining socio-material agencies and technologies such as the Internet and unmanned aerial vehicles [UVAs] commonly known as drones) to open new spaces of political participation and intervention in public spaces to confront violence against women in Mexico. The article seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the role that digital technologies play in promoting new forms of digital engagements, political action, and counter-culture strategies. It considers both the Internet and drones as pivotal instruments in a larger network of technologies through which social collectives seek to mobilize knowledge, create awareness, and contest power in order to combat violence against women in Mexico. By drawing on feminist technoscience literature, the article seeks to provide new insights into the literature on digital politics and to go beyond the "digital divide" by showing the networked feminist strategies operating within political participation, developing new understandings of contemporary civilian disputes over both aerial and digital environments as public spaces.

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