One of my favourite articles in IR theory is Ken Booth's John Vincent Memorial Lecture (1994) which was published in International Affairs: "The camera always lies. We all know that childhood holidays were not always sunny, or full of smiles, but the material (photographic) evidence now suggests otherwise. We know that the camera always lies, yet we conspire to believe the opposite. We conspire to believe that the camera objectively records the truth; the cliche asserts that it never lies".
We need to be pay attention to the ways in which we symbolically structure 'the international' through our preconceived ideas of what we think qualifies as 'international relations'. I made these 'mash up' YouTube trailers to illustrate how the familiar stock of images we associate with international politics can produce different types of readings about the state. What struck me was how important background conditions (e.g. soundtracks, aesthetic and visual considerations) produce different readings of a text or an idea in everyday life.
International Relations is an interpretative discipline rather than a mimetic one. This means that international relations does not mirror (mimesis) the world out there but is actively engaged in taking vignettes or snapshots of what it thinks international politics looks like. Following from this is the importance of thinking of key concepts within international relations away from the 'comfort zone' of cliche. I have taken images traditionally associated with contemporary international relations (From Thatcher to Gorbachev to Aung San Suu Kyi) in order to see how these can be made to tell different stories about progress and modernity according to editorial placement of sounds, signs and images.
These formed part of my lecture on our first year module Introduction to Key Concepts and Issues in International Relations. Has international politics suffered as a result of the love affair with the state? Has the study of international relations and international theory been held hostage to the story of anarchy and its haunting within international politics?
These videos hope to encourage discussion around the placement of the state within the modern political experience. The state is a moral and ethical domain (thanks Professor Hegel for this point) and it is important that we explore its standing within contemporary discourse.
The State: A Modern Love Story
The State: A Chilling Tale of Anarchy
