Permanent URL: https://colonialcommunication.lboro.ac.uk/episodes/imperial-air-force-in-mesopotamia/
Title: Coloniality and Communications: Imperial Air Force in Mesopotamia (Episode 2)
Creator: Burçe Çelik; Sebastian James Rose
Contributors: Sena Başöz (video production, editing)
Data Provider: Loughborough University
Provider: Coloniality and Communications
Type: Video
Format: Video (MP4)
Is Shown At: https://colonialcommunication.lboro.ac.uk/episodes/imperial-air-force-in-mesopotamia/
Date: 2025
Language: English
Description: This episode features Burçe Çelik examining an image published in Illustrated London News in 1917 that depicts the Mesopotamian theatre of the First World War. The video places the image within the context of British–Ottoman conflict, in which air power became an increasingly important element of warfare. Following the British defeat at Kut in 1916, the image can be understood as part of a broader effort to highlight British military capabilities, particularly through the Royal Air Corps. Airplanes, supported by technologies such as aerial photography and wireless communication, are discussed as key features of modern warfare, illustrating how air and communication technologies contributed to contemporary representations of power and conflict.
Subject: Aerial surveillance, Colonial infrastructure, Mesopotamia, Iraq, British Empire, Visual media, Air power, Imperial control
Spatial Coverage: Mesopotamia (Iraq)
Temporal Coverage: 1918–1932
Rights: CC BY-NC 4.0
Rights Holder: Loughborough University
Is Part Of: Coloniality and Communications – Episodes
Source Institutions: British Newspaper Archive
Project Context:
Coloniality and Communications: British Telecommunications in Mesopotamia in the Early 20th Century is an AHRC funded project run by Prof. Burçe Çelik (P.I.), Dr. Sebastian James Rose (Research Associate) at Loughborough University and artist Sena Başöz.
Coloniality and Communications unveils the historical role and legacy of British telecommunications in the making of colonial spatiality in Mesopotamia and the Middle East in the early 20th century. The project aims to advance decolonial research on media and communications through the epistemological force of regional and geopolitical history. By providing historical research on the past of colonial communications, this project aims to shift Westcentric conceptions, theoretical frameworks and received histories on media and communications.
Focusing on the interplay of communications and state building in Mesopotamia and Iraq from 1918 to 1932, the project challenges and questions existing paradigms in communication studies and the history of technology by asking: How were communications repurposed by the local people as forms of resistance? What roles did communications networks play in the making of colonial and national space? How did communications infrastructures, technologies and networks produce and reproduce colonial violence and control?
This video was produced as part of the research project Coloniality and Communications: British Telecommunications in Mesopotamia in the Early 20th Century.
Learn more at the project website: https://colonialcommunication.lboro.ac.uk/
Related content can be accessed at https://colonialcommunication.lboro.ac.uk/episodes/