Introduction
Violence, Visuality and World Politics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3672133 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helen Berents (0000-0003-1331-3308), Constance Duncombe (0000-0003-3790-7434, School of International Relations) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 567-571 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ia/iiaa058 |
| OpenAlex | W3022033355 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
Visuals are powerful mediators of global political events. Images, moving and still alike, are significant objects that play a role in shaping our understanding of international affairs. Through their multiple interpretations, these visuals can both represent reality and condition how we understand it. Within International Relations, there has been growing attention to the visual, with explorations of a wide range of theoretical concerns and empirical focuses. For instance, contributors to the burgeoning field of visual politics examine the affective power of images, how images become securitized and their role in framing politics.1 Yet to date sustained attention has not been paid to the links between violence, images of violence and the effects of those images on policy-making.2 This special section draws on rich conversations in visual politics, alongside other disciplinary contributions, to pay particular attention to the co-constitution of visuality and violence in world politics. Visuals, whether still images or film and video, can help increase our field of view and make us aware of the many forms and manifestations of violence and its effects. When exploring the intersection of visuality and violence we are often drawn to considerations of the spectacular, of explosive violence and its aftermath that can fundamentally reshape understandings and practices of both international order and international relations. However, and in addition, visual representations of ‘slow’ or indirect violence,3 whether in the form of environmental crises, the disciplining effects of neo-liberalism on development or the gendered dimensions of violence, are just as important to understanding global politics. In an era of ‘digital witnessing’,4 attending to the social and political consequences of visual repertoires of violence deepens and broadens our capacity to comprehend the political in its many manifestations. The special section of this issue of International Affairs sets out to address these important subjects by examining how images are implicated in direct and indirect violence, how emotional logics contribute to the political function of images, and furthermore how violent images inform the ways in which communities, policy-makers and scholars see and respond to complex political problems.
Constitution · Discipline · Framing (construction) · International relations · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |