Professor Roland Bleiker
Professor

Roland Bleiker

Email: 
Phone: 
+61 7 336 51068

Background

Roland is Professor of International Relations and Coordinator of the Visual Politics Research Program. His research explores how images and emotions shape political phenomena, including humanitarianism, security, peacebuilding, protest movements and the conflict in Korea. Books include Visual Global Politics (Routledge, 2018); Aesthetics and World Politics (Palgrave, 2009/2012); Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press, 2005/2008) and Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (CUP, 2000).

Roland’s main current research project is an interdisciplinary ARC Linkage collaboration (2022-2026) on The Politics and Ethics of Visualising Humanitarian Crises. The project involves eight researchers and the World Press Photo Foundation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Australian Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières.

Roland grew up in Zürich, Switzerland, where he was educated and worked as a lawyer. He studied international relations in Paris, Seoul, Toronto, Vancouver and Canberra. Roland also worked for two years in a Swiss diplomatic mission in the Korean DMZ and held visiting affiliations at Harvard, Cambridge, Humboldt, Tampere, Yonsei and Pusan National University as well as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Further informatin can be found on Roland''s personal website:

For an in-person or zoom appointment book here: https://calendly.com/bleiker

Selection of Recent Publications

“Decolonising Affect" Cooperation and Conflict (2024)

“Un-Disciplining the International” Alternatives: Local, Global, Political (2023)

"Visualizing International Relations” Journal of Visual Political Communication, 10,(2023

"Visual Violence" Interview with Brad Evans, Los Angeles Review of Books, 3 Jan 2022.

Availability

Professor Roland Bleiker is:
Available for supervision
Media expert

Fields of research

Government and politics of Asia and the Pacific Human Society International relations Language, Communication and Culture Political science

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Arts, University of Toronto
  • Masters (Coursework), The University of British Columbia
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Australian National University

Research interests

  • International Relations: Visual Politics and Emotions

    Theories of International Relations. How images and emotions shape political phenomena, including security, diplomacy and humanitarian crises.

  • Peace and Conflict Studies

    Conflict resolution in societies divided by trauma. Transnational social movements and the conceptualisation of political change. Art and literature as sources of political transformation.

  • Politics and Security in Korea

    Security and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula, including policy-relevant debates.

Research impacts

Much of my work has revolved around combining theory and practice. I embark on conceptual inquires to rethink entrenched political dillemas. At the moment my main practice-oriented reserach is a four year collaborative project on The Politics and Ethics of Visualising Humanitarian Crises. Funded through an ARC Linkage Grant (2022-2025) this project aims to draw on the power of images to transform practices and policies of aid. In particular, the project develops – and tests - alternative visual strategies that depict humanitarian crises in ways that encourage compassion for victims without entrenching problematic stereotypes. We work with four prominent Partner Organisations that are at the forefront of humanitarian and photojournalistic work: The World Press Photo Foundation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Australian Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières. The project team consists of myself and five other Chief Investigators: A/Prof Emma Hutchison, from the School of Political Science and International Studies; Prof Matthew Hornsey and Dr Cassandra Chapman from the UQ Business School, as well as A/Prof Sana Nakata from the University of Melbourne and Prof Bina D’Costa from the Australian National University. Involved as well are two Partner Investigators: Prof Fiona Terry, Head of Research at the ICRC, and Prof David Campbell, formerly Director of Communication at World Press Photo and now with The VII Foundation.

Search Professor Roland Bleiker’s works on UQ eSpace

195 works between 1993 and 2025
All (195) Journal Article (100) Book Chapter (79) Conference Publication (3) Book (8) Other Outputs (2) Edited Outputs (3)

21 - 40 of 195 works

2019

Journal Article

AJPS Forum on ‘exploring the (multiple) futures of world politics through popular culture,’ edited by Penny Griffin

Bleiker, Roland (2019). AJPS Forum on ‘exploring the (multiple) futures of world politics through popular culture,’ edited by Penny Griffin. Australian Journal of Political Science, 54 (4), 505-507. doi: 10.1080/10361146.2019.1663401

AJPS Forum on ‘exploring the (multiple) futures of world politics through popular culture,’ edited by Penny Griffin

2019

Journal Article

Visual autoethnography and international security: insights from the Korean DMZ

Bleiker, Roland (2019). Visual autoethnography and international security: insights from the Korean DMZ. European Journal of International Security, 4 (3), 274-299. doi: 10.1017/eis.2019.14

Visual autoethnography and international security: insights from the Korean DMZ

2019

Journal Article

Writing Visual Global Politics: in Defence of a Pluralist Approach—a Response to Gabi Schlag, “Thinking and Writing Visual Global Politics”

Bleiker, Roland (2019). Writing Visual Global Politics: in Defence of a Pluralist Approach—a Response to Gabi Schlag, “Thinking and Writing Visual Global Politics”. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 32 (1), 115-123. doi: 10.1007/s10767-018-9299-5

Writing Visual Global Politics: in Defence of a Pluralist Approach—a Response to Gabi Schlag, “Thinking and Writing Visual Global Politics”

2019

Book Chapter

In public: collectivities and polities

Hutchison, Emma and Bleiker, Roland (2019). In public: collectivities and polities. A cultural history of the emotions in the Modern and Post-Modern Age. (pp. 145-159) edited by Jane W. Davidson and Joy Damousi. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic. doi: 10.5040/9781474207072

In public: collectivities and polities

2019

Book Chapter

Gender and violence in news media and photography

Bleiker, Roland and Hutchison, Emma (2019). Gender and violence in news media and photography. Handbook on Gender and Violence. (pp. 231-247) edited by Laura J. Shepherd. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing. doi: 10.4337/9781788114691.00023

Gender and violence in news media and photography

2019

Book Chapter

The politics of photography: Reflections on Salvatore Vitale's How to Secure a Country

Bleiker, Roland (2019). The politics of photography: Reflections on Salvatore Vitale's How to Secure a Country. How to Secure a Country: From Border Policing via Weather Forecast to Social Engineering — A Visual Study of 21st-Century Statehood. (pp. 267-272) edited by Salvatore Vitale and Lars Willumeit. Zürich, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publisher.

The politics of photography: Reflections on Salvatore Vitale's How to Secure a Country

2018

Journal Article

Conspiracy and foreign policy

Aistrope, Tim and Bleiker, Roland (2018). Conspiracy and foreign policy. Security Dialogue, 49 (3), 165-182. doi: 10.1177/0967010617748305

Conspiracy and foreign policy

2018

Book Chapter

Mapping visual global politics

Bleiker, Roland (2018). Mapping visual global politics. Visual global politics. (pp. 1-29) edited by Roland Bleiker. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315856506-1

Mapping visual global politics

2018

Journal Article

Methods and methodologies for the study of emotions in world politics

Bleiker, Roland and Hutchison, Emma (2018). Methods and methodologies for the study of emotions in world politics. Researching Emotions in International Relations: Methodological Perspectives On the Emotional Turn, 325-342. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-65575-8_14

Methods and methodologies for the study of emotions in world politics

2018

Book Chapter

Methods and methodologies for the study of emotions in world politics

Bleiker, Roland and Hutchison, Emma (2018). Methods and methodologies for the study of emotions in world politics. Researching emotions in international relations: methodological perspectives on the emotional turn. (pp. 325-342) edited by Maéva Clément and Eric Sangar. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-65575-8_14

Methods and methodologies for the study of emotions in world politics

2018

Book Chapter

Visual security: patterns and prospects

Bleiker, Roland (2018). Visual security: patterns and prospects. Visual security studies: sights and spectacles of insecurity and war. (pp. 189-200) edited by Juha A. Vuori and Rune Saugmann Andersen. London, United Kingdom: Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.4324/9781315387581-11

Visual security: patterns and prospects

2018

Journal Article

Review of Jieun Baek, North Korea's hidden revolution: how the information underground is transforming a closed society, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 2016, ISBN 10 0300217811, ISBN 13 9780300217810 (hbk), 312 pp

Bleiker, Roland (2018). Review of Jieun Baek, North Korea's hidden revolution: how the information underground is transforming a closed society, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 2016, ISBN 10 0300217811, ISBN 13 9780300217810 (hbk), 312 pp. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 31 (2), 239-242. doi: 10.1080/09557571.2018.1446708

Review of Jieun Baek, North Korea's hidden revolution: how the information underground is transforming a closed society, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 2016, ISBN 10 0300217811, ISBN 13 9780300217810 (hbk), 312 pp

2018

Book Chapter

Aesthetic turn in international relations

Bleiker, Roland (2018). Aesthetic turn in international relations. International relations. (pp. 1-13) edited by Patrick James. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0236

Aesthetic turn in international relations

2017

Journal Article

Discourse and emotions in international relations

Koschut, Simon, Hall, Todd H., Wolf, Reinhard, Solomon, Ty, Hutchison, Emma and Bleiker, Roland (2017). Discourse and emotions in international relations. International Studies Review, 19 (3), 481-508. doi: 10.1093/isr/vix033

Discourse and emotions in international relations

2017

Book Chapter

Multidisciplinarity

Bleiker, Roland (2017). Multidisciplinarity. Routledge handbook of international political soociology. (pp. 319-327) edited by Xavier Guillaume and Pınar Bilgin. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315446486-32

Multidisciplinarity

2017

Book Chapter

Embodied witnessing: Indigenous performance art as political dissent

Butler, Sally and Bleiker, Roland (2017). Embodied witnessing: Indigenous performance art as political dissent. Art as political witness. (pp. 99-115) edited by Kia Lindroos and Frank Moller. Berlin, Germany: Barbara Budrich Publishers.

Embodied witnessing: Indigenous performance art as political dissent

2017

Book Chapter

Postmodernism

Bleiker, Roland (2017). Postmodernism. An introduction to international relations. (pp. 94-105) edited by Richard Devetak, Jim George and Sarah Percy. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781316855188.008

Postmodernism

2017

Journal Article

In search of thinking space: reflections on the aesthetic turn in international political theory

Bleiker, Roland (2017). In search of thinking space: reflections on the aesthetic turn in international political theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 45 (2), 258-264. doi: 10.1177/0305829816684262

In search of thinking space: reflections on the aesthetic turn in international political theory

2016

Conference Publication

Elections as theater

Chou, Mark, Bleiker, Roland and Premaratna, Nilanjana (2016). Elections as theater. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/S1049096515001225

Elections as theater

2016

Book Chapter

Arts and theatre for peacebuilding

Premaratna, Nilanjana and Bleiker, Roland (2016). Arts and theatre for peacebuilding. The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace. (pp. 82-94) edited by Oliver P. Richmond, Sandra Pogodda and Jasmin Ramović. Hampshire, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-40761-0_7

Arts and theatre for peacebuilding

Current funding

  • 2022 - 2026
    Visualising humanitarian crises: transforming images and aid policy
    ARC Linkage Projects
    Open grant
  • 2021 - 2028
    Developing UQ as a central hub for nurturing the next generation of Korean Studies education, research and regional cooperation for Queensland and Northern Territory, Australia
    The Academy of Korean Studies
    Open grant

Past funding

  • 2011 - 2014
    How Images Shape Responses to Humanitarian Crises
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2011
    UQ Travel Awards Category 1 - Dr James Brassett
    UQ Travel Grants Scheme
    Open grant
  • 2011
    UQ Travel Awards Category 1 - Prof Iver B Neumann
    UQ Travel Grants Scheme
    Open grant
  • 2010
    UQ Travel Awards Category 1, David Campbell
    UQ Travel Grants Scheme
    Open grant
  • 2006 - 2007
    Mediating Across Difference: Asian and Oceanic Approaches to Security and Conflict
    The Japan Foundation, Sydney
    Open grant
  • 2005
    Towards an Aesthetics of Peace at at Time of War: Alternative Understandings and Responses to Global Terrorism
    University of Queensland Research Development Grants Scheme
    Open grant
  • 2001 - 2002
    From Confrontation to Cooperation in Korea: The Role of Identity in the Formation of Security Policy
    United States Institute of Peace
    Open grant
  • 1999
    Rethinking security and ethics in divided nations.
    UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund
    Open grant

Availability

Professor Roland Bleiker is:
Available for supervision

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Available projects

Supervision history

Current supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Picturing climate migration: critiquing the visual discourse

    Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor Karen McNamara

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Feeling Nation-States: Emotions and Belonging in the Making of Postcolonial Nation-States

    Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: Associate Professor Heloise Weber

  • Doctor Philosophy

    The Political Power of Cinema: Historical Trauma and Transitional Justice in East and Southeast Asia

    Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Picturing climate migration: critiquing the visual discourse

    Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor Karen McNamara

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Visualising Sri Lanka's Humanitarian Crises

    Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Intractable Conflict and Self-Sacrifice in Interpersonal Mediation

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg

  • Master Philosophy

    Self-Sacrifice and Intractable Conflict

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Climate Change and Security in France

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor Matt McDonald

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Climate Change and Security in France

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor Matt McDonald

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Climate Change and Security in France

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor Matt McDonald

Completed supervision

Enquiries

Contact Professor Roland Bleiker directly for media enquiries about:

  • Anti-globalisation critique
  • International relations and security
  • Korea - peace and security
  • New social movements
  • Peace and conflict issues
  • Peace and conflict studies
  • Peace and security in Korea

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