Visuality, temporality, and the uncertain geopolitics of the Russo-Ukrainian war

Abstract

This Symposium interrogates the relationship between the spatial, the temporal, and the visual in a war-affected society. Several leading researchers working on Ukraine in multiple disciplinary fields examine how combining the visual and the (unseen) temporal are vital for understanding the new and uncertain spatial configurations that emerge from the displacement and stress of conflict and bordering. These interventions aim to amplify the voices and visions of those who have been marginalised and overlooked. It brings into dialogue perspectives of displacement with those who have remained. In connecting these elements, it considers how both the visual and the temporal intersect with the production of knowledge in contemporary geopolitics. In such a way, the theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions in this symposium point to ways to theorise and approach the trauma of conflict and bordering, while also challenging hegemonic geopolitical interpretations and neo-imperial actors.