Description - Method 1: Visuality

Images and symbols are inextricable from security studies. The way we perceive threat determines where and how societies and soldiers apply force, and reciprocally, it is usually through images and symbols that the application of force is contextualized, justified and rationalized. The purpose of this methodological cluster is to analyze the security implications of the perceptual process as a whole, that is, how individuals physically perceive, how what they perceive is generated and propagated, and in what way meaning is attributed to that which is perceived.

Questions

• Does theorizing the visual require a “grammar” of its own?
• How do images limit and enable securitization?
• How do figurations and discourses relate to and shape one another?
• How do sensory experiences, real or enhanced by technology, impact the notions of power and responsibility in the context of security?
• How is security anchored to images?
• How does one engage beyond expert-analyst circles, in the study of security and visuality?

Method Coordinator

Youri Cormier, youricormier@gmail.com