Youngs G (2011) Feminist International Relations in a High-Tech Age. In: A. Bergman-Rosamund and M. Phythian (eds.) War, Ethics and Justice: New perspectives on a post-9/11 world (pp. 112–27). London: Routledge 

From the standpoint of debates about liberal ethics, this chapter synthesises feminist international relations and socio-technical perspectives on intelligence. Unpacking ontological elements of security in the context of the ethics of state-centrism and the duality that separates the intelligence world from the ordinary world (and justifies what happens in the former in the interests of the security of the latter), Youngs looks at the functions of technologies in mediating experience, focusing in particular on the expression of and subjection to power and the saturation of technologies in different areas of contemporary life, as well as the 'normalisation' of such processes as surveillance.

Underpinned by research linked to the ESRC research seminar series Ethics and the War on Terror: Politics, Multiculturalism and Media (2006–2009) for which Youngs was the principal investigator, this invited chapter extends Youngs’ previous explorations of the relationship between socio-technical developments in new media and the war on terror by looking specifically at their relationship to intelligence and ethics. Through an examination of how feminist frameworks can help us focus on technology as socially embedded, Youngs argues for an information society perspective which directs our attention to the expanding roles of information and computerised data in social structures and relations. Whether we are thinking about virtual (digital or data) identities, or commodities such as databases, which are relevant to many intelligence processes, including profiling, Youngs suggests that they are always integrated dynamically with other social processes, including those related to gender, identity and knowledge production.