The composition of an identity : discourses of identity in migrant imagery

Abstract

When discussing groups of people that hardly have a voice of their own in the society, it is important to examine the conceptions that are created and maintained through the use of visual material. This research unwraps the seemingly evident representations communicated in photographs of migrants and explains the conceptions to which the visual signs refer to. The theoretical perspective is in social constructionism, which sees our knowledge of the world as an understanding that people construct between them (Burr 2014, 4). The research material is consisted of 37 images and 4 videos of an online campaign page of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). I combine close reading method and discourse analysis to analyze the visual content and to study the arising discourses on identity. Using the concept of semiotics, I dismantle the images into their semiotical functions. I refer to visual rhetoric in order to examine the persuasion that exists in the certain ways of constructing the world and the metabeliefs (Atzmon 2011, XIV). The discourses on identity in the campaign present the migrant in multiple roles and personalities. The use of visual signs that support the most prominent constructions is repetitive and consistent, implying conscious planning on the presenter’s side. The discourses found in the campaign function in three ways: making statements through emotional relation, giving countering perspectives and reasoning to migrant-related topics and attempting to construct an individual identity of a migrant instead of the customary collective identity.