Analyzing visual border politics

Chapter 2 presents the book’s methodology, research design, and methods. The analysis of visual border politics raises methodological and methodical questions from the perspectives of (visual) IR and critical migration and border studies. Against this background, this chapter develops a framework for an in-depth analysis of the much-evoked power and politics of images that allows unpacking how images become affective and politically effective in the context of migration and ‘at the border’. Arguing that visual border politics need to be understood as situated practices of meaning-making that are informed by and mirror larger (visual) discursive structures, the framework combines analyses at two levels. It explores, first, the mobilization of images in policy discourses during peak times and, second, the development of visual patterns in media discourses across a timeframe of several years.