Abstract
In our image-saturated world, where the mass media produces representations of disasters as fast as they occur, images convey as much meaning as discourse does. “Images have effect; they do something that words do not. And the discourse on images and icons can only take convoluted ways to explain its intention. For if discourse were able to say everything that an image can, it would take the place of images and would have the superiority of being able to theorize it” (Mondzain, Image, icône, économie. Les sources byzantines de l’imaginaire contemporain. Paris: Le Seuil, 1996: 19). It therefore becomes essential to understand the representations that “natural” disasters and subsequent rescue efforts give rise to, and take a moment to analyze how this world displays itself and represents its specificities. Just like words, descriptive processes, and practices, representations and images constantly help to shape and redefine the boundaries of this world and the tensions running through it.
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Notes
- 1.
Richard Bégin shows in particular the extent to which the space for producing images of disasters has shrunk since the 2004 tsunami, with the instant circulation of images taken by smartphones and posted on social media by the victims themselves.
- 2.
I am referring to printed documents and CD/DVDs collected during fieldwork. They reflect the work of NGOs, government bodies, and international organizations.
- 3.
See for instance in the case of UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org/media/media_tools_gui-delines.html (accessed April 5, 2018).
- 4.
Personal communication with the head of communication at Unicef France, June 2013.
- 5.
This was a project aiming to set standards for humanitarian assistance, founded in 1997 on an initiative of major international NGOs in the wake of the genocide in Rwanda. The Sphere Project’s flagship publication is The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response, issued in 1998, revised and reissued in 2000, 2004, 2011 and 2018. See https://www.spherestandards.org/ (accessed October 15, 2019).
- 6.
CONCORD. 2006. Code of Conduct on Images and Messages. Available at https://concordeurope.org/2012/09/27/code-of-conduct-on-images-and-messages/ (accessed April 5, 2018).
- 7.
Id.
- 8.
See in this regard the remarkable group research project carried out in the United Kingdom by David Campbell, D. J. Clark and Kate Manzo, Imaging Famine: http://www.imaging-famine.org/ (accessed April 5, 2018).
- 9.
See the “historical images” section of the Imaging Famine Project: http://www.imaging-famine.org/historical/gallery.htm (accessed April 5, 2018).
- 10.
I am inspired here by the title of an article by Mary Fran Myers (1994), which played an important role in thinking about gender in disaster management.
- 11.
See “Clouds but little rain…,” Views from the frontline 2009, by the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction for an account of the local implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action in 2009. On line: https://www.preventionweb.net/publications/view/9822 (accessed April 5, 2018).
- 12.
- 13.
http://www.unisdr.org/2012/iddr/ (accessed April 6, 2018).
- 14.
My emphasis.
- 15.
This article gives an exhaustive review of the literature on gender in disaster contexts throughout the world and provides 180 references.
- 16.
- 17.
See, for example, Merchant (1996).
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Revet, S. (2020). Disaster Iconography: Victims, Rescue Workers, and Hazards. In: Disasterland. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41582-2_3
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