How are images, emotions, and international politics connected? This article develops a theoretical framework contributing to visuality and emotions research in International Relations. Correcting the understanding that images cause particular emotional responses, this article claims that emotionally laden responses to images should be seen as performed in foreign policy discourses. We theorise images as objects of interpretation and contestation, and emotions as socially constituted rather than as individual ‘inner states’. Emotional bundling – the coupling of different emotions in discourse – helps constitute political subjectivities that both politicise and depoliticise. Through emotional bundling political leaders express their experiences of feelings shared by all humans, and simultaneously articulate themselves in authoritative and gendered subject positions such as ‘the father’. We illustrate the value of our framework by analysing the photographs of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian-Kurdish boy who drowned in September 2015. ‘Kurdi’ became an instant global icon of the Syrian refugee crisis. World leaders expressed their personal grief and determination to act, but within a year, policies adopted with direct reference to Kurdi's tragic death changed from an open-door approach to attempts to stop refugees from arriving. A discursive-performative approach opens up new avenues for research on visuality, emotionality, and world politics.

中文翻译：

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图像、情感和国际政治：艾伦·库尔迪之死

图像、情感和国际政治是如何联系起来的？本文开发了一个有助于国际关系中的视觉和情感研究的理论框架。纠正图像引起特定情绪反应的理解，本文声称对图像的充满情绪的反应应该被视为执行在外交政策话语中。我们将图像理论化为解释和争论的对象，将情感理论化为社会构成的而不是个体的“内在状态”。情感捆绑——话语中不同情感的耦合——有助于构成政治化和非政治化的政治主体性。通过情感捆绑，政治领袖表达了他们对全人类共有的感受的体验，同时在权威和性别主体位置（如“父亲”）中表达了自己。我们通过分析 2015 年 9 月溺水身亡的 3 岁叙利亚库尔德男孩艾伦·库尔迪 (Alan Kurdi) 的照片来说明我们框架的价值。“库尔迪”立即成为叙利亚难民危机的全球标志。世界各国领导人表达了他们个人的悲痛和采取行动的决心，但在一年之内，直接针对库尔迪悲惨死亡而采取的政策从敞开大门的方式转变为试图阻止难民抵达的做法。