Baghdad”: Space, Representation, and the Colonial Present

Wandering the Streets of “Baghdad”: Space, Representation, and the Colonial Present by Wesley Attewell B.A. (hon.), The University of British Columbia, 2007 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Geography) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2009 © Wesley Attewell, 2009 ii Abstract In this thesis, I will explore the triangular relationship between space, representational practices, and the colonial present. I will grapple with a few key research questions: how do we, as Westerners, represent the “other”? How, in turn, do we represent “ourselves”? How have these representational practices shaped the conduct of the War on Terror? And finally, how are (neo)colonial struggles over the politics of representation intricately bound up with questions of geography? By focusing my attention upon the recent invasion, and subsequent occupation of Iraq, I hope to offer a historico-geographically responsible, as well as anti-essentialist, reading of three distinct “digital spaces”: two blogs (Riverbend’s Baghdad Burning and Colby Buzzell’s My War: Killing Time in Iraq ) and Multi-National Force Iraq’s YouTube channel. Here, I will argue that, to paraphrase Edward Said, broader geographical struggles, over forms, over images, and over imaginings are not only being dispersed around the globe, they are also being fractured and subsequently contested on a more micro-scale in these new digital battlegrounds. As I hope to demonstrate over the course of this thesis, social media websites such as blogs and YouTube must conceptualized not only as political, but also as antipolitical spaces, in that they both encourage and stifle critical debate on issues pertaining to late modern warfare. Furthermore, the discursive dimensions of geographical struggle must be brought into (vexed) relation with its material dimensions (i.e., armies moving across space), and it is the mutually constitutive nature of this relationship that I will emphasize in this thesis: in other words, the conduct of late modern warfare is not only influenced by, but also influences, the deployment of representational practices. Ultimately, I argue that the increasing importance of the so-called “social media” (i.e., blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) as digital spaces of (anti?)politics enables us, as critical human geographers, to produce a genuinely human geography, and to think about space, the body, and representational practices in very different ways. iii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ...........................................................................................................................iii List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... vi Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... vii A Prince’s Geography ..................................................................................................................... 1 “Every Iraqi’s Nightmare” ........................................................................................................... 14 Colby Buzzell’s War ...................................................................................................................... 42 “Because Total Destruction is Beautiful” .................................................................................... 67 “Only the Dead Are Safe…” ......................................................................................................... 98 Notes ........................................................................................................................................... 105 iv List of Tables Table 3.1 Clips Uploaded to MNFIRAQ Channel (August 6, 2009) .......................................... 70 v List of Figures Figure 3.1 MFNIRAQ.................................................................................................................. 81 Figure 3.2. “Battle on Haifa Street, Baghdad, Iraq” .................................................................... 82 Figure 3.3 “Troops Give Gifts to Iraqi Children”........................................................................ 83 Figure 3.4 “US Soldiers Taunting Iraqi Children w/ Water Bottle”............................................. 84 Figure 3.5 “Senior Terrorists Eliminated”.................................................................................... 85 Figure 3.6 “Long Day in Baqubah” .............................................................................................. 86 Figure 3.7 “Close Call for the Marines” ...................................................................................... 87 Figure 3.8 Call of Duty 4 .............................................................................................................. 88 vi Acknowledgements I wish to thank the faculty, the staff, and my fellow colleagues at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Geography for making my graduate work an incredible and above all, unforgettable experience. I also wish to thank to Dr. Jim Glassman for not only taking the time from his sabbatical to read over the drafts of my thesis, and for encouraging my interest in pursuing graduate studies. Furthermore, I owe an incredibly large debt to my supervisor, Dr. Derek Gregory, who, through his tireless and enthusiastic support, always encouraged me to push the boundaries of my own research and intellectual growth. I am looking forward to many more years of intellectual collaboration, of friendship, and of meetings at Cardero’s. I also wish to thank my parents, who have supported me through my many years of education, both morally and financially, and my sister, for grudgingly reading over all of my term assignments for the past seven years. I wish to extend a very special thanks to Lisa, whose love and emotional support has not only encouraged me to be the best that I can be, but has also helped me nurture my dream of one day making a meaningful contribution to society through my research and teaching. Both your praise and your criticism have kept me grounded and focused upon the tasks ahead. As my constant inspiration, as my teacher, as my best friend, and as the love of my life, you have shown me the world. vii Dedication To Lisa 1 A Prince’s Geography “They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, an unlimited governmental power which protects them from other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above” 1. This thesis has its origin in one particular set of interconnected questions. They are not unique or revolutionary questions by any stretch of the imagination, but, as I hope to demonstrate, they have acquired a new relevance in light of recent events, particularly the initiation of the global “War on Terror” by the former President of the United States, George W. Bush. The questions themselves are deceptively simple: how do we, as Westerners, represent the “other”? How, in turn, do we represent ourselves? How are colonial struggles over the politics of representation intricately bound up with issues of geography? These are the questions that Edward Said was grappling with in his path breaking study of Orientalism ; that provoked Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to ask “Can the Subaltern Speak?”; that drove Timothy Mitchell to think about the modern world as though it were an exhibition. These are the questions that have inspired a whole generation of so-called “post-colonial” scholars from a range of disciplinary perspectives to both highlight, and excoriate, the chains that bind the colonial past to the colonial present: or, to paraphrase Marx, to think about the ways in which the “traditions of all the dead generations” weigh “like a nightmare on the brain of the living” 2. Although the field of postcolonial studies is as rich as it is diverse, some have argued that, at least in recent years, it may have lost its ability to speak clearly about the questions that led to its formation in the first place. Indeed, as Spivak points out: “Postcolonial studies, unwittingly commemorating a lost object, can become an alibi unless it is placed within a general frame. Colonial discourse studies, when they concentrate only on the representation of the colonized or the matter of the colonies, can sometimes serve the production of current neocolonial knowledge by placing colonialism/imperialism securely in the past, and/or by suggesting a continuous line from that past to our present. This situation complicates the fact that postcolonial/colonial discourse studies is becoming a substantial subdisciplinary ghetto” 3. I am sympathetic to these concerns, and by introducing my thesis in this manner, I place my own research within a particular constellation of scholarly knowledge. As yet another human 2 geographer referencing Said, Spivak, and Mitchell, one might argue that I have laid down the logic of the analysis to follow. Given

Load more