![Professor Roland Bleiker](/sites/default/files/profiles/617.jpeg)
Overview
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
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Arts, University of Toronto
- Masters (Coursework), The University of British Columbia
- Doctor of Philosophy, Australian National University
Research interests
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International Relations: Visual Politics and Emotions
Theories of International Relations. How images and emotions shape political phenomena, including security, diplomacy and humanitarian crises.
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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.
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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.
Works
Search Professor Roland Bleiker’s works on UQ eSpace
2020
Book Chapter
The politics of images: a pluralist methodological framework
Bleiker, Roland (2020). The politics of images: a pluralist methodological framework. Critical Methods for the Study of World Politics: Creativity and Transformation. (pp. 272-288) edited by Shine Choi, Anna Selmeczi and Erzsébet Strausz. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315104997-21
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
Funding
Current funding
Past funding
Supervision
Availability
- Professor Roland Bleiker is:
- Available for supervision
Before you email them, read our advice on how to contact a supervisor.
Available projects
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
Picturing climate migration: critiquing the visual discourse
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Karen McNamara
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Doctor Philosophy
Visualising Sri Lanka's Humanitarian Crises
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Emma Hutchison
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Master Philosophy
Self-Sacrifice and Intractable Conflict
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg
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Doctor Philosophy
Feeling Nation-States Examining the role of affect in the formation of Pakistan and its foreign policy
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Emma Hutchison
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Doctor Philosophy
Climate change and security in France
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Matt McDonald
Completed supervision
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2024
Doctor Philosophy
Photographic Resistance: Protest, the News, and the Viewer
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Emma Hutchison, Associate Professor Sebastian Kaempf
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Emotions and Political Violence: An (Auto-)ethnographic Account of the People's War in Nepal
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg, Associate Professor Emma Hutchison
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2022
Doctor Philosophy
Visualising India¿s Nuclear Tests: How Images Shape National Identity
Principal Advisor
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2020
Doctor Philosophy
Ontological Security and Migration: Beyond Securitisation and Identity Politics
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Matt McDonald
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Liberal Militarisation: Visualising the Military Body as a Form of Governance
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Sebastian Kaempf
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Mediation in international conflicts: the impartial, empowering and pressing mediator
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Andrew Phillips
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2017
Doctor Philosophy
The Use of the Death Penalty for Drug Offences in Southeast Asia: Sovereignty, Deterrence, Retribution and Proportionality
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Melissa Curley
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2015
Doctor Philosophy
Theatre for Peacebuilding: the role of arts in conflict transformation in South Asia
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg
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2013
Doctor Philosophy
Conspiracy Theory and American Foreign Policy
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Martin Weber
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2008
Doctor Philosophy
From Dualism to Wholeness: Understanding Religion and Politics in the West
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Richard Devetak, Associate Professor Jacinta O'Hagan
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2008
Doctor Philosophy
Trauma, Emotion, and the Construction of Community in World Politics
Principal Advisor
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2007
Doctor Philosophy
THE CONSTRUCTION OF WHITENESS IN AUSTRALIA: DISCOURSES OF IMMIGRATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY FROM THE WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY TO MULTICULTRALISM
Principal Advisor
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2007
Doctor Philosophy
Between Movements of Crisis and Movements of Affluence: An analysis of the campaign against the Jabiluka uranium mine, 1997-2000.
Principal Advisor
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2005
Doctor Philosophy
ASKING AFTER SELVES: KNOWLEDGE AND SETTLER-INDIGENOUS CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Principal Advisor
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2003
Doctor Philosophy
Transformative peacebuilding in post-conflict reconstruction: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Principal Advisor
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2024
Doctor Philosophy
Resurgent Histories of Afghanistan: Political Encounters with Modernity
Associate Advisor
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Affective Resistance: Feeling through everyday Palestinian struggle
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Emma Hutchison
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Local ownership, NGOs, and peacebuilding in Africa: A study of conflict-affected zones in Ghana
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Politics of Children's Rights: Development and Deprivation in Pakistan
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Heloise Weber
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2015
Doctor Philosophy
Civil Society and Governance in Vietnam's One Party System
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Melissa Curley
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2014
Doctor Philosophy
Representation, recognition and respect: foreign policy and the Iran-US relationship
Associate Advisor
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2005
Doctor Philosophy
LEGITIMISING REJECTION: INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE LAW IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Associate Advisor
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2003
Doctor Philosophy
JAPAN-AUSTRALIA - THE MAKINGS OF A SECURITY COMMUNITY
Associate Advisor
Media
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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