In this seminar, we will introduce the obligatory group assignment on Visualizing IR.

All members of each project group must attend and ensure they understand the task.

We will discuss question such as: What do we mean by visualizing IR? What does it mean to theorize through visual expression? How can we think about the ethics of visual representation? How can we DO visual IR practically? What are some good examples?

Lecturers: Maria Stern

Below is an explanation of the group assignment.

Visualizing IR Group Work

Roll up your shirtsleeves and grab some glue, scissors, paintbrushes, or clay! Grab your camera or cell phone; access your computer’s video making capacities because this group assignment will give you the opportunity to ‘do’ IR visually!

Assignment at a Glance

This is a mandatory assignment worth 2 hp.
You will complete the assignment in groups of 5.
The assignment is due on January 4 and will be presented on January 13.
This is a pass/fail (U/G) assignment. We will not be graded on the artistry of your work, but instead on its relevance to the content of the course.

Rationale

In this group assignment, you and your group members will visually represent one or more problems or issues in IR. The problem(s) or issue(s) you visualize must come from course lectures and assigned literature. Perhaps you want to make a collage about global capital, poverty, and resource inequality? Perhaps you want to make a series of TikTok videos that address the questions of borders and climate change? How about building a sculpture about violence and warfare or a painting about belonging, democracy, and authority? As these questions indicate, this is your opportunity to engage with course content critically, creatively, and collaboratively. Thus, the assignment will help you sharpen and channel your “sensory, aesthetic, affective, and embodied" knowledge (Page and Gaggiotti, 2012: 74) of IR and to share that knowledge with your classmates.

Possible Publication

While you are not required to publish your visual IR project, you are encouraged to submit your project along with a written description of the problems and issues it addresses to the School of Global Studies’ official blog, Blogal StudiesLinks to an external site..

Examples

https://www.historiesofviolence.com/arts

I am an American by Cynthia Weber

Paint for the Planet (children’s drawings of climate change)

Some Memory Prevails: affective thinking on the border, death, and the future, by Tintin Wulia

Take a Lesson from Nature by Jill Pelto

The Climate Art Project by Andreco

The Knotted Gun

When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Art and Migration

Recommended Reading

Baudot, Barbara (2010). “Art in International Relations.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (available through the GU library)

Feeney, Sharon, John Hogan & Paul F. Donnelly (2015). "What stick figures tell us about Irish politics: creating a critical and collaborative learning space." Teaching in Higher Education, 20 (3); 313-327. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2015.1016416

Page, Margaret, and Hugo Gaggiotti. 2012. “A Visual Inquiry into Ethics and Change.” Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 7 (1): 72–85. doi: 10.1108/17465641211223519.

Shepherd, Laura J. (2017). ‘Aesthetics, Ethics, and Visual Research in the Digital Age: ‘Undone in the Face of the Otter’’, Millennium, 45(2), pp. 214–222. doi: 10.1177/0305829816684255.