Geopolitics and Images: From Images to Discourse

Semiotics and Geopolitics intersect on one fundamental aspect: representations. This chapter explains how geopolitical representations function starting from theories by Agnew, O'Loughlin, Ó Tuathail and Yves Lacoste, and how they take the form of narration, discourse, toponyms and images. Particular emphasis is given to toponyms, which explain how a political actor appropriates a particular territory by naming it. Giving a name to a place means defining that territory in relation to the actor’s strategy and worldview. Several cases are described, such as that of the Arabian / Persian Gulf or the Sea of Japan / East Sea. Later, an explanation of how Geopolitics deploys images. Examples relate to the presentation of some events, such as the photo of Aylan Kurdi. A dramatic photograph in a news item becomes an instrument to convey a certain representation of a geopolitical phenomenon such as that of global migration, and stigmatizes a relationship between different territories: Africa or Asia on one side, and Europe on the other. But the instrumentalization of images also concerns cases that strengthen the connection with Geopolitics. This chapter, in fact, ends with examples of Landscapes not only as pictorial and photographic items, but also as projections of certain social values, and representations of identity. This chapter highlights the connection between a vision of Identity which is often exclusive to the other’ and which represents, with skillfully elaborated and modified images, an exclusive territorial vision.