Visual Securitization: Humanitarian Representations and Migration Governance

This book explores how relief organizations' visual depiction of Syrian displacement contributes to reproducing and reinforcing a securitized account of refugees. It demonstrates this through visual analysis, showing how mainstream media and political accounts depict refugees as threats, a representation of Syrian displaced people that reinforces victimhood and passivity, and the dialectic between what is made visible and what is not. The book identifies visual glimmers and minor displacements in the humanitarian discourse that have the potential to produce alternative discourses on refugees and displacement.

Format: Hardback
Length: 204 pages
Publication date: 19 May 2021
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This open-access book presents a groundbreaking exploration of how relief organizations' visual portrayal of Syrian displacement contributes to the reproduction and reinforcement of a securitized account of refugees. Through a comprehensive visual analysis, the book reveals how the securitization process unfolds in three distinct ways. Firstly, even if marginally, it occurs through the reproduction of mainstream media and political accounts that have portrayed refugees as threats. Secondly, and more consistently, through the representation of Syrian displaced people that, despite innovative aesthetic patterns emphasizing dignity and empowerment, continue to perpetuate a visual narrative surrounding refugees in terms of victimhood and passivity. The reproduction of a securitized account also takes place through the interplay between what is depicted in the pictures and what remains unseen. Simultaneously, the book identifies visual glimmers and minor displacements within the humanitarian discourse that possess the potential to generate alternative discourses on refugees and displacement that go beyond the mainstream securitized ones. By demonstrating how relief organizations' visual representation contributes to the securitization of the refugee issue, this book serves as an invaluable resource for students, academics, social scientists, policy-makers, and anyone interested in migration, visibility, humanitarianism, and securitization.

Weight: 500g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030711429
Edition number: 1st ed. 2021