re-visualising international relations: audio-visual projects and direct encounters with the political in security studies

Abstract

In this paper we discuss how an innovative audio-visual project was adopted to foster active, rather than declarative learning, in critical international relations. Firstly, we explore the aesthetic turn in IR, to contrast this with forms of representation that have dominated International Relations scholarship. Representation is the 'very location of politics' (Bleiker, 2001: 510). Therefore, to confront this and also to provide students with the opportunity to explore their own insights through aesthetic ad non-written formats, we describe secondly, how student groups were asked to record short audio or video projects. Thirdly, we explain how these projects are understood to be deeply embedded in social science methodologies, citing inspiration from The Sociological 2 Imagination (C Wright Mills, 1959) as a way to counterbalance a 'marketised' slant in HE, in a global economy where students are often encouraged to consume, rather than produce knowledge. Finally, we draw conclusions in terms of deeper forms of student engagement leading to new ways of thinking and presenting new skills and new connections between theory and practice.

Benefits and Challenges of Transnational Education: Reflections From a Sino-British Joint Venture University

“…Podcasts have been used both as a primary (Taylor, 2009, 119) and supplementary (Roberts, 2008) resource for delivering course content by political science instructors. More recently, podcasts have been used as a form of assessment especially in response to students’ demands for fewer essay assignments (Obradovic-Wochnick & Hayes, 2017, 416; McMahon, 2021). Whether prepared by lecturers in delivering course content or by students in fulfilment of assessment requirements, audio podcasts have so far served as unidirectional tools of communication from teachers to students or vice versa.…”