Visuality and Emotions in International Politics

This short workshop took up the recent 'visual turn' in research on emotions in international politics. Empirically, it brought together research on different fields of world politics, including conflict, migration, humanitarianism and everyday political performativity. At the same time, the workshop combined interdisciplinary research on different media of expression, including film, graffiti and fashion. Conceptually, we aimed at disentangling the experience and expression of emotions from the social and political processes through which they are shaped, shared, and transformed. The various contributions challenge discoursed of 'authenticity' of emotions by highlighting their performativity. They combined a focus on narrative techniques, materiality and gender in order to add nuance to the study of the relationship between images and emotions.

Programme

Panel I (chaired by Henri Myrttinen)

2pm -3pm

• Marie Beauchamps, Queen Mary University of London.
  The Threatened Swan: What a painting tells us about the power of emotions in politics of security in response to a security threat

• Katja Freistein, Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen
  Dressed for Power. Female Leaders, Fashion, and the Performativity of the Emotional

• Simon Koschut, Freie Universität, Berlin
  'This Transatlantic Alliance Is Felt So Keenly': Ritual, Emotion and Security Communities

• Amya Agarwal, Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen
  Graffiti, Gender and Emotions in the Kashmiri Resistance

Panel II (chaired by tbc)

3pm-4pm

• Christine Unrau, Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen
  Crafting Compassion? Flight and Migration in Documentary Films

• Renny Thomas, Sociology and Social Anthropology, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi
  Visuality, Emotions, and the Laboratory: Anthropological Observations

• Katharina Krause, Institut for Political Science, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
  Seeing ‘bodies in pain’: Images, Emotions and the Health-Security Nexus

• Henri Myrttinen, Mauerpark Institute, Berlin
  Death Becomes Him: The Hypervisibility of Martyrdom and Invisibility of the Wounded in the Iconography of Lebanese Militarised Masculinities

Partner site: https://www.doingips.org/news-events/visuality-emotions.