Knowledge-Intensive Fusion for Situational Awareness: Band Sultan Dam Failure Scenario

This report provides a detailed specification of a humanitarian relief scenario involving significant civil-military cooperation. The scenario aims to highlight some challenges and opportunities for semantic integration and knowledge processing in support of humanitarian relief efforts undertaken against a backdrop of military conflict. The scenario depicts an earthquake and associated flood event occurring in Afghanistan at the time of the US-led coalition effort to displace the former Taliban regime. The flood event occurs as a secondary phenomenon to the earthquake and precipitates a full-scale humanitarian relief effort co-opting the resources of both humanitarian and military agencies. This scenario will serve to showcase the capabilities of the AKTiveSA TDS with respect to enhanced situation awareness and improved information fusion. Such capabilities depend on the ability to exploit multiple sources of information and sophisticated query capabilities in order to expedite the dissemination of relevant information to executive agencies in a timely and appropriate fashion. The scenario narrative draws attention to some of the information requirements demanded by military and humanitarian decision makers in the context of complex emergency situations. It also serves to illustrate the critical knowledge processing capabilities of agents with respect to the assessment of disaster situations and relief effort planning. Finally, the scenario provides an indication of the requirements for visualization and interaction that should be afforded to end-user agents in order to optimise their exploitation of system capabilities. This report also provides background information about the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of humanitarian agencies with respect to disaster relief and reviews guidelines on the nature of civil-military coordination in the context of disaster relief efforts in conflict situations

Development and validation of a disaster management metamodel (DMM)

Disaster Management (DM) is a diffused area of knowledge. It has many complex features interconnecting the physical and the social views of the world. Many international and national bodies create knowledge models to allow knowledge sharing and effective DM activities. But these are often narrow in focus and deal with specified disaster types. We analyze thirty such models to uncover that many DM activities are actually common even when the events vary. We then create a unified view of DM in the form of a metamodel. We apply a metamodelling process to ensure that this metamodel is complete and consistent. We validate it and present a representational layer to unify and share knowledge as well as combine and match different DM activities according to different disaster situations

Proceedings of the 2004 ONR Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on these new capabilities such as the Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System (IMMACCS) and the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) had already reached the field-testing and final product stages, respectively. Second, over the past two decades the US Navy and Marine Corps had been increasingly challenged by missions demanding the rapid deployment of forces into hostile or devastate dterritories with minimum or non-existent indigenous support capabilities. Under these conditions Marine Corps forces had to rely mostly, if not entirely, on sea-based support and sustainment operations. Particularly today, operational strategies such as Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) and Sea To Objective Maneuver (STOM) are very much in need of intelligent, near real-time and adaptive decision-support tools to assist military commanders and their staff under conditions of rapid change and overwhelming data loads. In the light of these developments the Logistics Program Office of ONR considered it timely to provide an annual forum for the interchange of ideas, needs and concepts that would address the decision-support requirements and opportunities in combined Navy and Marine Corps sea-based warfare and humanitarian relief operations. The first ONR Workshop was held April 20-22, 1999 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, California. It focused on advances in technology with particular emphasis on an emerging family of powerful computer-based tools, and concluded that the most able members of this family of tools appear to be computer-based agents that are capable of communicating within a virtual environment of the real world. From 2001 onward the venue of the Workshop moved from the West Coast to Washington, and in 2003 the sponsorship was taken over by ONR’s Littoral Combat/Power Projection (FNC) Program Office (Program Manager: Mr. Barry Blumenthal). Themes and keynote speakers of past Workshops have included: 1999: ‘Collaborative Decision Making Tools’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); LtGen Paul Van Riper (USMC Ret.);Radm Leland Kollmorgen (USN Ret.); and, Dr. Gary Klein (KleinAssociates) 2000: ‘The Human-Computer Partnership in Decision-Support’ Dr. Ronald DeMarco (Associate Technical Director, ONR); Radm CharlesMunns; Col Robert Schmidle; and, Col Ray Cole (USMC Ret.) 2001: ‘Continuing the Revolution in Military Affairs’ Mr. Andrew Marshall (Director, Office of Net Assessment, OSD); and,Radm Jay M. Cohen (Chief of Naval Research, ONR) 2002: ‘Transformation ... ’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); and, Steve Cooper (CIO, Office ofHomeland Security) 2003: ‘Developing the New Infostructure’ Richard P. Lee (Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, OSD); and, MichaelO’Neil (Boeing) 2004: ‘Interoperability’ MajGen Bradley M. Lott (USMC), Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Donald Diggs, Director, C2 Policy, OASD (NII

Humanitarian Diplomacy at the United Nations

I en verden preget av kriser, langvarige væpnede konflikter og hyppigere naturkatastrofer på grunn av klimaendringer, forventes humanitære behov på tvers av landegrenser og kontinenter å øke. Dette tvinger humanitære aktører til å utvikle ferdigheter innen det som kan kalles humanitært diplomati - for å overtale beslutningstakere og sentrale interessenter til å handle i sårbare befolkningers interesse.Hva, mer spesifikt, er humanitært diplomati, og hvordan manifesterer dette seg i FN-sammenheng? Det er blant spørsmålene Salla Turunen undersøker i sin forskning fra Universitetet i Bergen og Chr. Michelsen Institutt (CMI). I sitt prosjekt utvider hun ideen om diplomati til å inkludere ikke-statlige aktører og undersøker hvordan disse engasjerer seg i diplomatisk praksis. Dette gjør hun med fokus på humanitære aktører, FN og FNs ‘Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’, som er FNs hovedkoordineringsorgan for internasjonal respons ved humanitære kriser. I sin forskning finner Turunen at: • humanitært diplomati er en selvstendig form for diplomati; • humanitær diplomatisk praksis kan konseptualiseres og hjelpe til med å forstå hvordan humanitært diplomati gjør seg gjeldende i verden; • OCHA og FN balanserer mellom humanitære idealer og pragmatiske realiteter i sitt humanitære arbeid; • humanitært diplomati er et kjønnet fenomen slik det utforskes gjennom dets utøvere.This dissertation discusses humanitarian diplomacy at the United Nations (UN). Humanitarian diplomacy, a diplomatic engagement practised by humanitarian actors, represents a modality of diplomacy that is not restricted to state-relegated, Westphalian diplomacy. With an expansion of diplomatic space, actors, and professions in line with developments of, for example, globalization, multilateralism, and technology, practices of diplomacy have migrated to a vast variety of social spheres. Humanitarianism represents one of these, albeit diplomatic practices of negotiation, representation, and compromise, among others, have long existed in the field and only recently labelled as ‘humanitarian diplomacy’. Whereas definitions for humanitarian diplomacy remain far-ranging and actor-dependent, the meaning of the term used in this dissertation is as follows: humanitarian diplomacy entails forms of negotiation, persuasion, and strategizing, among other diplomatic practices, which aim to advance access to and aid delivery of resources and protection for vulnerable populations worst affected by crises, conflicts, and emergencies. It is practised by humanitarian actors who seek to represent, influence, and advocate for a humanitarian polity in a non-humanitarian world against other, non-humanitarian polities, and such humanitarian representation can be considered a cornerstone of humanitarian diplomacy. This PhD dissertation is located in the discipline of international relations (IR). It is motivated by the exploration of humanitarian diplomacy as a new and illustrative concept that allows novel directions of analysis to examine the current status of international affairs. As such, coining the term captures a potential for questioning and reshaping the conceptual categories of humanitarianism and diplomacy. By merging two different semantic fields together as one, humanitarian diplomacy questions the boundaries of who constitutes diplomatic actors, in which spaces does both humanitarianism and diplomacy take place, and with what kind of acts. By broadening this scope of analysis, humanitarians can be seen as agents that actively shape national and international politics, dynamics, and relationships. This dissertation explores this agency by seeking to address the following research question: how do humanitarian practitioners engage in humanitarian diplomacy? Taking an institutional focus on the UN, the organization represents both a diplomatic body and humanitarian actor. However, the UN has been under-researched in terms of humanitarian diplomacy. Whereas scholarly works exist both for diplomacy conducted at and by the UN, and the UN humanitarian interventions, inspecting the UN through the concept of humanitarian diplomacy remains at tentative stages. In contributing to this lacuna of knowledge, this dissertation argues that humanitarian diplomacy at the UN can be illustratively understood as principled pragmatism. The UN humanitarians continuously seek balances between humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence, and humanity, and operational realities and restrictions on the ground that impact humanitarian action. From high-level humanitarian decision-making to frontline humanitarian negotiations, the UN humanitarians are forced to come up with practical solutions in reaching vulnerable populations worst affected by crises, conflicts, and emergencies. The theoretical framework guiding this scientific inquiry draws from practice theory. Reasons for this theoretical choice include its suitability to studies of traditional and non-traditional forms of diplomacy, the contemporary disciplinary interest given ‘practice turn’ in IR scholarship, and the practitioner focus of this dissertation. Further, humanitarian diplomacy translates into harvesting support for humanitarian interventions, whether that support is political, economic, social, and/or logistical, among others. In these processes of gaining such support, humanitarian diplomacy can be reified through certain sets of practices, that include, inter alia, collaboration between different humanitarian actors and stakeholders, and relationship-building in public and political partnerships. Practices, therefore, represent a central concept of this dissertation, understood as socially meaningful patterns of action by international actors – humanitarian practitioners. This dissertation is a prospective thesis by publication, meaning that it is intended and created as an article-based PhD project. It includes an introductory part for the dissertation (‘kappe’ in Norwegian), and three qualitative research articles. Whereas these articles can be treated and read independently, these pieces of research thematically intertwine to form a self-standing piece on humanitarian diplomacy at the UN. Article one, ‘Humanitarian Diplomatic Practices’ published in The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, discusses how humanitarian diplomacy can be reified, understood, and analysed at the level of its practices. It also presents an analytical framework of humanitarian diplomatic practices through five basic characteristics: ‘why’ humanitarian diplomatic practices take place; ‘what’ they mean; ‘who’ they include; ‘where’ they occur; and ‘how’ they are done. In article two, ‘The Principled Pragmatists: Humanitarian Diplomatic Practices at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’ under review in Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, the analytical framework of the first article is applied empirically into an exploratory case study of OCHA. Article two illustrates how OCHA’s humanitarian diplomacy can be seen as a case of ‘principled pragmatism’, referring to a merge between humanitarian ideals and operational/pragmatic realities of humanitarian action. This second article also begins a targeted discussion of humanitarian diplomacy taking place at one of the leading, yet currently under-discussed, humanitarian diplomatic actors, the UN. Lastly, article three, ‘“Have You Been Recruited Because You Are a Woman or Because You Are Good?” Gendered Humanitarian Diplomats at the United Nations’ accepted for publication in Diplomatica, offers a first research intervention of gender analysis to humanitarian diplomacy with an explicit focus on humanitarian diplomats. This study reveals a discrepancy between the UN’s global leadership in gender equality and its struggles to achieve such a mission internally. Furthermore, the article discusses that gender inequality among humanitarian practitioners hampers the aim of gender equal humanitarian action. Methodologically this dissertation employs both a desk study approach and empirical data collection. Article one represents a desk study for conceptual building for which empirical data was not collected, rather, it draws from current existing research on humanitarian diplomacy and practice theory. Then, articles two and three draw from research interviews. The author conducted nineteen interviews with current and former OCHA staff members. Whereas these interviews are limited in number, they represent one of the largest samplings in studying humanitarian diplomacy, and the interviewees’ work experience with OCHA spans 30 different countries. These interviews were semi-structured, and all but one of the research interviews have been treated as anonymous throughout the study. These interviews provide rare research insights into humanitarian diplomacy, as the existing research in the field collects, displays, and quotes interview data to a limited extent. Prior to the inclusion of these three research articles, the introductory part (‘kappe’) of this dissertation is organized as follows: Section one defines and frames the three key concepts used in this dissertation, those of humanitarianism, diplomacy, and humanitarian diplomacy. Section two illustrates how the three research articles included contribute to answering the main research question of this dissertation, and provides an overview discussion of the articles more in detail. Section two also includes a conversation on researcher positionality as a central factor guiding this research and its interests. Section three situates the conducted research within the axes of disciplinary location in IR, philosophy of science, theoretical framework, and the inclusion of gender perspective in studying humanitarian diplomacy. Section four serves as a literature review, capturing the current state of the art in the field of related studies. Section five sheds light on the research design used in this dissertation in terms of case selection, data collection, and ethical considerations, while section six concludes the introduction with a focus on the main findings and suggestions for future research. The main findings include a phenomenological argument that humanitarian diplomacy can be seen as its own, independent form of diplomatic engagement with ideologies, characteristics, and practices that sets it distinctively apart from other forms of diplomacy (article one). In exploring the empirical context of the UN, the dissertation provides an understanding of humanitarian diplomacy, without an attempt to exhaust all forms of humanitarian diplomacy, inside and outside of the UN. The approach captured in this dissertation finds that humanitarian practitioners – guided by humanitarian principles – gain grounds for pragmatic compromise, practical dealings, and access to political spheres through diplomatic engagement (article two). The inclusion of gender in the analysis of humanitarian diplomats at the UN showcases how gender as a social attribute defines opportunities and limitations for practitioners, underlining a masculine premise of humanitarian diplomacy and female exceptionality, which fit into the institutional, gendered context of the UN (article three). In addition to the main findings, this dissertation contributes to an emerging scholarly field on humanitarian diplomacy in five ways: 1) Conceptualization of humanitarian diplomatic practices; 2) Theoretical expansion of practice theory to include humanitarian diplomacy; 3) Introduction of gender analysis to the field; 4) A novel case study selection and focus on the UN and OCHA; and 5) Showcasing data collection on humanitarian diplomacy with humanitarian practitioners. In addition to research contribution, the dissertation seeks to cater for practitioner-audiences in making sense of their own humanitarian diplomatic engagement. This includes notions of how humanitarian diplomacy manifests in the world, what kind of engagement it entails, and what potential its institutionalization could offer.Doktorgradsavhandlin

EXPLOITING KASPAROV'S LAW: ENHANCED INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION IN DOD SIMULATION-BASED TRAINING ENVIRONMENTS

Despite recent advances in the representation of logistics considerations in DOD staff training and wargaming simulations, logistics information systems (IS) remain underrepresented. Unlike many command and control (C2) systems, which can be integrated with simulations through common protocols (e.g., OTH-Gold), many logistics ISs require manpower-intensive human-in-the-loop (HitL) processes for simulation-IS (sim-IS) integration. Where automated sim-IS integration has been achieved, it often does not simulate important sociotechnical system (STS) dynamics, such as information latency and human error, presenting decision-makers with an unrealistic representation of logistics C2 capabilities in context. This research seeks to overcome the limitations of conventional sim-IS interoperability approaches by developing and validating a new approach for sim-IS information exchange through robotic process automation (RPA). RPA software supports the automation of IS information exchange through ISs’ existing graphical user interfaces. This “outside-in” approach to IS integration mitigates the need for engineering changes in ISs (or simulations) for automated information exchange. In addition to validating the potential for an RPA-based approach to sim-IS integration, this research presents recommendations for a Distributed Simulation Engineering and Execution Process (DSEEP) overlay to guide the engineering and execution of sim-IS environments.Major, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Oneself as a Universe: Post-Humanism, Cosmopolitanism, and Contemporary Italian Thought

This project originates from the necessity to explain an uncanny fusion detected between cosmopolitan characteristics which Antonio Gramsci ascribed to Italian intellectual culture and the anti-humanistic connotations displayed by Italian Thought. Traditional cosmopolitan discourses inheriting the legacy of the Enlightenment generally align with humanistic perspectives whereas, as Roberto Esposito observes, Italian Theory has endorsed anti-humanistic viewpoints ever since the age of the Renaissance. How does one explain such a connection? Also, how are we to justify the ascetic categories of mysticism, weakness, slowness, bareness, etc. which proliferated among Italian thinkers starting from the late 1970s? In response to these questions, this work attempts to define the position that contemporary Italian philosophy defends with respect to the current debate on cosmopolitan theory. Neo-Kantian solutions proposed by authors such as Jϋrgen Habermas, Daniele Archibugi and David Held, will certainly be given some consideration. Importantly, these discourses acknowledge the necessity to rethink the role of both the state and international relations in view of the brutalities perpetrated by 20th century totalitarianisms and the present globalized geopolitical scenario. Advocating a reinforcement of global powers and counting faithfully on the authority of law, these theories nonetheless elicit some perplexities. On one hand, they presuppose a disbelief within people’s self-emancipating capacities and, on the other, are not sufficiently critical of the neoliberal agenda. This is even more evident when considering that most of the said authors do not express skepticism with respect to the promotion of human rights. While human rights are certainly needed now more than ever, in several cases they align with both a profit-oriented and imperialistic mentality. It is relieving to discover that cosmopolitanism was initially founded by the Greek Cynics as a non-humanistic discourse and that several authors, including Peter Sloterdijck and William Desmond, highlighted similarities connecting Greek Cynicism with contemporary European modes of thinking. The Cynic perspective can help one solve many of the aforementioned doubts, because it rejects conventional societal values such as wealth, fame, and power, while promoting moral ideals of liberty, equality, self-sufficiency, and ascetic practices. In view of these premises, this study will pursue the hypothesis that, beginning with the publication of Massimo Cacciari’s Krisis (1976), Italian Philosophy and Literature have embraced a critical rhetoric which partially moves away from Marxian views and gradually retrieves cynic ideas. More specifically, the inquiry will unfold along two different paths: the historical-cultural analysis will be utilized as a material support for reaching theoretical-philosophical targets. Regarding the historical-cultural aspect, I will clarify to what extent contemporary Italian philosophy and literature retrieve Greek Cynic contents. This part of the theory will develop according to three fundamental factors which separate the sphere of the “human” from the domain of the “non-human”. The first two factors, “reason” and “language”, will be discussed within chapter 2 by exploring the work of Massimo Cacciari, Gianni Vattimo, and literature from the 1977 movement. “History” will represent the third pivotal discriminating factor in chapter 3, focusing on Franco Cassano’s Southern Thought and Giorgio Agamben’s post-humanism. The ultimate intention, which is philosophical, is to extrapolate from Italian Cynicism a critical cosmopolitan discourse that destabilizes neoliberal ideological structures and dissociates principles of local autonomy from cultural protectionism and anti-immigration claims.PHDRomance Languages & Literatures: ItalianUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146077/1/robmosc_1.pd

Faith in Action: Understanding the Relationship between Faith and Practice for Evangelical Humanitarian Organisations

The increased interest in and willingness to consider the role of religious actors, ideas and practices in the IR discipline is a promising development of contemporary scholarship. Within the study of humanitarianism in particular, attention to the range of ways in which religion infuses action and meaning in the global space has raised important questions about how best to go about answering the questions of when and how these religious factors matter. However, the slow pace at which the field is moving away from secular framings of humanitarianism means that religious actors are still largely under-conceptualised, and poorly understood. This disproportionately affects perceptions of religious actors that do not obviously resemble the mainstream aid community, such as evangelical Christian faith-based organisations (FBOs). Understanding the relationship between their religious identity and their humanitarian practices in a manner that does not reproduce such framings is an important research task to contribute to this field. This thesis seeks to advance conceptualisation of this relationship by providing such a theoretical framework. It also contributes original empirical evidence through case studies to which this framework is applied. It explores the relationship between identity and practice by asking what role theological commitments play in guiding the humanitarian practices of evangelical Christian FBOs. It does so by examining three evangelical humanitarian agencies - World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, and Compassion International - as they engaged with two humanitarian disasters in the Asia Pacific region: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, and the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in the Ayeyarwady delta region in Myanmar. It finds that their evangelical theological commitments play an important part in constructing an organisational identity and set of values for each agency, which then orients them towards certain styles of response. However, this understanding of the role of faith is incomplete without also considering the constitutive role of context in both giving the boundaries in which those beliefs can be expressed, and supplying important pressures, constraints, and demands that shape that expression. Their theological commitments created a framework of action for these evangelical FBOs that interacted constitutively with a prism of environmental factors in order to produce humanitarian practices that both reflected and diverged from the broader mainstream response, depending on circumstances. These findings highlight the importance of approaching religious organisations as complex and agentive actors, who adopt, reject or adapt to the pressures of the dynamic environments in which they work. It is an insight necessary not just for dealing with evangelical FBOs working in the humanitarian space, but in understanding religious actors across various sites of global politics

On Counterinsurgency: Firepower, Biopower, and the Collateralization of Milliatry Violence

This dissertation investigates the most recent cycle of North Atlantic expeditionary warfare by addressing the resuscitation of counterinsurgency warfare with a specific focus on the war in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014. The project interrogates the lasting aesthetic, epistemological, philosophical, and territorial implications of counterinsurgency, which should be understood as part of wider transformations in military affairs in relation to discourses of adaptation, complexity, and systemic design, and to the repertoire of global contingency and stability operations. Afghanistan served as a counterinsurgency laboratory, and the experiments will shape the conduct of future wars, domestic security practices, and the increasingly indistinct boundary between them. Using work from Michel Foucault and liberal war studies, the project undertakes a genealogy of contemporary population-centred counterinsurgency and interrogates how its conduct is constituted by and as a mixture firepower and biopower. Insofar as this mix employs force with different speeds, doses, and intensities, the dissertation argues that counterinsurgency unrestricts and collateralizes violence, which is emblematic of liberal war that kills selectively to secure and make life live in ways amenable to local and global imperatives of liberal rule. Contemporary military counterinsurgents, in conducting operations on the edges of liberal rule's jurisdiction and in recursively influencing the domestic spaces of North Atlantic states, fashion biopoweras custodial power to conduct the conduct of lifeto shape different interventions into the everyday lives of target populations. The 'lesser evil' logic of counterinsurgency is used to frame counterinsurgency as a type of warfare that is comparatively low-intensity and less harmful, and this justification actually lowers the threshold for violence by making increasingly indiscriminate the ways in which its employment damages and envelops populations and communities, thereby allowing counterinsurgents to speculate on the practice of expeditionary warfare and efforts to sustain occupations. Thus, the dissertation argues that counterinsurgency is a communicative process, better understood as mobile military media with an atmospheric-environmental register blending acute and ambient measures that are always-already kinetic. The counterinsurgent gaze enframes a world picture where everything can be a force amplifier and everywhere is a possible theatre of operations

Paradoxical Economies: A Time for Palestinian Cinema

As scholarship on hegemonic media industries thrives in the Global North, how can we understand the emerging film economies in the South without perpetuating the discourse that they are simply “catching up”? This dissertation follows scholars of critical media industries studies, transnational cinema, and postcolonial studies to examine industry as a process in constant formation – grounded in cultural, socio-economic, and political history. In other words, industry constitutes an epistemic system that produces value, legitimacy, and modes of organization. This research analyzes a range of transnational funding streams, film festivals in Palestine, and Palestinian films produced since the Second Intifada onwards. It investigates the infrastructural and material conditions of possibility as well as the imaginaries that sustain the project of a transnational Palestinian film industry. Such a project takes root in the Palestinian civil society, in the paradoxical contexts of development under colonization in the proto-state of Palestine and the multicultural settler state of Israel. This dissertation uncovers the paradoxical present of cultural and political negotiations, attempts, and uncertainties involved in developing Palestinian film practices that are “not-yet” industries. Each chapter investigates the temporalities that specific developmental economies produce and how Palestinian film practitioners respond to it. The emerging Palestinian film economy is enmeshed in the peace process’ ideal of stability enforced through counterinsurgency (Chapter Two); the imperative of sustainability that drives human development economies (Chapter Three); the emergency that structures humanitarian economies (Chapter Four); and the promise of recognition by liberal and settler multiculturalism (Chapter Five). Palestinians adapt to these contexts by devising strategies that draw from global imaginaries, militant histories, regional human rights networks and international anticolonial struggles. By focusing on temporality to explain transnational, colonial, and postcolonial power relations, each chapter asks how political histories shape media economies, and how media economies forge political futures. This dissertation contributes to interdisciplinary conversations around media and development by bridging media industries studies, postcolonial studies, postdevelopment theory, and critical media infrastructure studies