Visual Securitization in Global Governance. Humanitarian NGOs’ Representation of Syrian Displacement

Images of displacement populate our contemporary visual landscape. Particularly, the pictures of Syrian people escaping war have widely circulated through media, political and humanitarian accounts. This study focuses on the exploration of the role that transnational humanitarian NGOs’ photographic representation play in today global governance and securitization. Through a visual analysis of over 1000 images of Syrian displacement produced by four of the major NGOs (Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE, and MSF), combined with fieldwork in Jordan, Lebanon and Greece, this study has explored the role of transnational humanitarian NGOs’ discourse in shaping the global governance of the refugee issue. Particularly, it has shown how transnational humanitarian NGOs’ visual representation of Syrian displacement contributes to reproduce and reinforce securitized account of refugees. At the same time, it has also identified visual glimmers and minor displacements in the humanitarian discourse that have the potentiality of producing alternative discourses on refugees and displacement, beyond the mainstream securitized one.