B8297 - VISUAL COMMUNICATION, BORDER POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will be expected to be able to understand and analyse the role of communication and visuality in covering border politics, humanitarian emergencies, the processes of criminalization of migrants, and human rights. The course gives students competences and knowledge necessary to conceptualize visual border politics and analyze critically the exclusionary logic of border policing and immigration law enforcement, exploring the communicative architecture of humanitarian securitization and the possibilities of challenging and de-constructing these same narratives. Although it focused on migration and border politics, this analytical framework can be applied to other areas of research.

Course contents

This course critically examines how visual culture shapes public perceptions and policy decisions on borders, migration, climate change, and human rights. Through a sociological and criminological lens, students will analyze how visual media—including photojournalism, surveillance systems, humanitarian imagery, activist art, and data visualizations—mediate notions of crisis, victimhood, mobility, and justice.

Visuals are not neutral: they frame whose lives are seen as grievable, which forms of suffering are made visible, and what political actions are deemed necessary—or justified. Whether through iconic photographs of war and displacement —such as photographs of overcrowded boats, starving children, Palestinians living and dying under Israeli occupation— the aesthetic strategies of activist art, or the algorithmic mappings of border control agencies, the course explores how visual regimes construct dominant and contested narratives.

We engage with key theoretical frameworks in visual sociology, critical border studies, human rights, and climate justice. Special attention is paid to the intersectionality of representation: how race, gender, class, and colonial legacies structure the visual field and underpin unequal mobility regimes.

A special focus is dedicated to the role of art as a means through which we see, feel, and reimagine the world. Artistic practices and artworks are recognized as tools that can challenge dominant narratives and open alternative spaces of imagination, representation, and action. Thus, we will discuss the role of art in creating spaces for new narratives and challenging dominant imaginaries.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Critically analyze visual representations of borders, migration, climate change, and human rights from a sociological and criminological perspective.

2. Apply theories from visual sociology, border criminology, and climate justice to visual case studies.

3. Identify and critique how visuals contribute to the reproduction—or disruption—of hierarchies of power and inequality.

4. Develop visual literacy, including the ability to interpret, deconstruct, and ethically engage with visual material.

5. Create interdisciplinary presentations and essays that integrate academic, artistic, and activist sources.

6. Reflect on ethical issues of witnessing, representation, and complicity in humanitarian and securitarian visual regimes.

Readings/Bibliography

Hall, S. (1997), The work of representation, in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage Publications, pp. 13–74.

Hall, S. (1997), Spectacle of the 'Other', in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage Publications, pp. 223–276.

Giacomelli E., Musarò P. (2025), Climate Mobility Justice: Narratives and Visual Politics of the Panicocene, Palgrave Macmillan, UK (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7).

Chouliaraki L. and Georgiou M. (2019), The digital border: Mobility beyond territorial and symbolic Divides, European Journal of Communication 34(6): 594-605.

Musarò P. (2017), Mare nostrum: The visual politics of a military-humanitarian operation in the mediterranean sea, Media, Culture & Society 39(1): 11–28.

Salih R. (2025). On Reversing Reality. The Cunning of Impartiality on Gaza, Public Anthropologist 7 (244–261).

Teaching methods

The course is based on lectures, seminars by invited experts, and students-led seminars (group presentations). Each week includes a seminar (lecture + collective discussion), assigned readings, and a visual case study or media analysis. Group assignments will be planned as part of the final evaluation.

Assessment methods

Attending students’ peformance will be assessed through one individual short essay, one group assignment and a final written exam.

Short Essay will be on a focused topic of students’ choice, drawing on research and careful analysis of select readings for the class.

The final exam will include a list of 5 open ended questions on the topics of the lectures and the reading list. Each question will be given a score from 0 (missing answer) to 6 (=A, excellent answer). The assessment is based on the number of answers, the ability to use the correct terminology, the reference to the appropriate concepts and theories, the identification of critical issues, the clarity and soundness of the argumentation.

For the assignments - presentations in small groups (3-4 persons per group) - students are expected to analyse the communicative practices of artists or activists using a toolkit that will be introduced in class. The assignments will be assessed considering the originality of the work, the ability to refer to the appropriate theories and concepts, the use of the correct terminology, the interpretation of the data, the quality of the presentation, the clarity of the argumentation.

For those students who did not attend the course, or do not pass the exam, or wish to improve their score, it is MANDATORY to write a paper of 5000 words that includes-quotes ALL the readings of the program.

Assessment

Short Essay: 20% > 1500–2000 words, on a topic of choice using course theories and readings.

Active participation and group presentation: 30% > Collaborative visual analysis of activists or artistic media (creative formats encouraged).

Final exam: 50% > In-class written exam with 5 open-ended questions based on readings and lectures.

Alternative Exam Option: 5000-word paper with references to all course readings for non-attending students + oral exam on the readings. Students have to deliver it by email at least 2 weeks before the data of the oral exam and then they will discuss it (and the program) during the exam. It is not possible to do the oral exam if the paper was not delivered before.

To pass the course you must pass ALL assessments.

To register the final grade is necessary that you enrol in the official dates in the website Almaesami (https://almaesami.unibo.it/almaesami/welcome.htm).

Teaching tools

Active participation in class is a crucial part of your learning. Through news articles, videos, films and documentaries, web sites, or readings you will help the teacher to stimulate discussion during the class.

Students with different abilities or SLD who require educational adaptations or compensatory tools are invited to communicate their needs to the teaching staff to coordinate appropriate interventions with the competent bodies.

Office hours

See the website of Pierluigi Musarò