Bodies as Battleground: Gender Images and International Security

Images – photographs, cartoons, videos, posters, and paintings – are crucial for how threats and insecurity are communicated. Photographs of suffering and crying illustrate that there are humans in need of protection. Paintings of soldiers fighting on the battlefield show bravery as well as violence and atrocities. Whenever humans are featured in images, there are faces and bodies. Faces and bodies have gender.

The research project “Bodies as Battleground: Gender Images and International Security” is devoted to furthering our knowledge of how gender, images and security are connected. It provides theory and analysis of how images represent threats and danger by showing humans in specific and gendered ways. It studies if an increase in the level of violence has implications for gender roles. The research project is identifying and examining iconic representations of masculinity and femininity during times of war.

Hus gennemsøges i Husaybah, Irak, november 2005, Johan Spanner
Photo: Johan Spanner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean Cooper-Cunningham (2020). 'Drawing Fear of Difference: Race, Gender, and National Identity in Ms. Marvel Comics'. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 48(2). doi:10.1177/0305829819889133.

Lene Hansen (2020). 'Are 'core' feminist critiques of securitization theory racist? A reply to Alison Howell and Melanie Richter-Montpetit'. Security Dialogue, 51(4). doi:10.1177/0967010620907198. 

Megan MacKenzie (2020). 'Why do soldiers swap illicit pictures? How a visual discourse analysis illuminates military band of brother culture'. Security Dialogue, 51(4). doi:10.1177/0967010619898468.

Lene Hansen (2019). 'Reconstructing the silence/speech dichotomy in feminist security studies: Gender, agency and the politics of subjectivity in La Frontière Invisible'. In: Jane L. Parpart & Swati Parashar (eds.): Rethinking Silence, Voice and Agency in Contested Gendered Terrains. London: Routledge.

A complete list of publications can be viewed here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Principal Investigator

Professor Lene Hansen
Department of Political Science
University of Copenhagen
Mail: lha@ifs.ku.dk
Phone: + 45 35 32 34 32

 

 

 

 

 

Internal researchers

Name Title Phone E-mail
Constance Elaine Duncombe Associate Professor +4535324501 E-mail
Dean Cooper-Cunningham Assistant Professor - Tenure Track +4535337312 E-mail
Jacob Gerner Hariri Professor +4535323567 E-mail
Lene Hansen Professor +4535323432 E-mail

External group members

Name Title
MacKenzie, Megan Professor
Owens, Patricia Professor

Funded by

Logo - Independent Research Fund Denmark

Bodies as Battleground: Gender Images and International Security is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark

Project: Bodies as Battleground: Gender Images and International Security
Project period: 2018-2024

Contact

Principal Investigator
Professor Lene Hansen
Department of Political Science
University of Copenhagen
Mail: lha@ifs.ku.dk
Phone: + 45 35 32 34 32