Reading comics for the field of International Relations: Theory, method and the Bosnian War
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| European Journal of International Relations 23(3) service of IR theorizing and analysis. The potential of comics resides not only in the medium itself, but also in the rich literature devoted to its study. Broadly viewed, the interdisciplinary field of comics studies includes cultural-sociological studies drawing on Bourdieu that examine the genesis and development of comics as a form of expression with creatives, production processes, distributors and consumers/readers, with a particular focus on whether comics gain cultural legitimacy (Beaty, 2007; Gabilliet, 2010); semiotic studies of the specific sign systems through which comics speak (Groensteen, 2007); and studies that analyse one or a small number of comics through a thematic lens, for example, how personal trauma is mediated in autobiographical works Chute, 2010; Gilmore, 2011). This article draws on all these bodies of work in presenting a theoretical framework for the analysis of comics from an IR perspective. This framework consist of three analytical components a study of the cultural legitimacy of the medium of comics and how comics practise authority and knowledge a theoriza- tion of the sign system that comics speak through and, drawing on intertextuality, an account of how comics should be read through a substantial and specific question of importance to IR and how works might be selected. The article thus also seeks to move beyond the specific medium of comics to further discussions in IR on how images speak Hansen, a, 2015; Möller, 2007) by adding a theorization of drawing to an agenda that has so far been oriented towards the photographic and cinematic (for exceptions, see Aradau and Hill, 2013; Lisle, 2006; Sylvester, 2001; Weber, 2014). More generally, it engages with current debates over intertextuality and qualitative methodology taking place in IR (Aradau and Huysmans, 2014; Bleiker, 2015). Through a case study of the Bosnian War, the article joins IR discussions of how genocide can be represented and responsibility for countering it can be assigned, particularly in the case of Bosnia Campbell, 1998; Lowe, The article proceeds in the following way. The first section provides a definition of comics and an account of its distinctiveness compared with other cultural media. The second section presents the theoretical framework. The third section lays out the more specific IR theme engaged in this article (the representation of and responsibility for genocide) and an analysis of three comics on the Bosnian War Hermann’s Sarajevo Tango; Enki Bilal’s Le Sommeil du Monstre/The Dormant Beast; and Christmas with Karadzic by Joe Sacco. Download 1.29 Mb. Share with your friends:
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