Images, emotions, and international politics: The death of Alan Kurdi

TY - JOUR

T1 - Images, emotions, and international politics: The death of Alan Kurdi

AU - Adler-Nissen, Rebecca

AU - Andersen, Katrine Emilie

AU - Hansen, Lene

PY - 2020/1/1

Y1 - 2020/1/1

N2 - How are images, emotions, and international politics connected? This article develops a theoretical framework contributing to visuality and emotions research in International Relations. Correcting the understanding that images cause particular emotional responses, this article claims that emotionally laden responses to images should be seen as performed in foreign policy discourses. We theorise images as objects of interpretation and contestation, and emotions as socially constituted rather than as individual 'inner states'. Emotional bundling - the coupling of different emotions in discourse - helps constitute political subjectivities that both politicise and depoliticise. Through emotional bundling political leaders express their experiences of feelings shared by all humans, and simultaneously articulate themselves in authoritative and gendered subject positions such as 'the father'. We illustrate the value of our framework by analysing the photographs of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian-Kurdish boy who drowned in September 2015. 'Kurdi' became an instant global icon of the Syrian refugee crisis. World leaders expressed their personal grief and determination to act, but within a year, policies adopted with direct reference to Kurdi's tragic death changed from an open-door approach to attempts to stop refugees from arriving. A discursive-performative approach opens up new avenues for research on visuality, emotionality, and world politics.

AB - How are images, emotions, and international politics connected? This article develops a theoretical framework contributing to visuality and emotions research in International Relations. Correcting the understanding that images cause particular emotional responses, this article claims that emotionally laden responses to images should be seen as performed in foreign policy discourses. We theorise images as objects of interpretation and contestation, and emotions as socially constituted rather than as individual 'inner states'. Emotional bundling - the coupling of different emotions in discourse - helps constitute political subjectivities that both politicise and depoliticise. Through emotional bundling political leaders express their experiences of feelings shared by all humans, and simultaneously articulate themselves in authoritative and gendered subject positions such as 'the father'. We illustrate the value of our framework by analysing the photographs of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian-Kurdish boy who drowned in September 2015. 'Kurdi' became an instant global icon of the Syrian refugee crisis. World leaders expressed their personal grief and determination to act, but within a year, policies adopted with direct reference to Kurdi's tragic death changed from an open-door approach to attempts to stop refugees from arriving. A discursive-performative approach opens up new avenues for research on visuality, emotionality, and world politics.

KW - Alan Kurdi

KW - Discourse

KW - Emotions

KW - Images

KW - Migration

KW - Performativity

KW - Social Media

KW - Visuality

KW - Digital

KW - Refugee

KW - immigration

KW - EU

KW - Icon

U2 - 10.1017/S0260210519000317

DO - 10.1017/S0260210519000317

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0260-2105

JO - Review of International Studies

JF - Review of International Studies

ER -