Complexity and Simplification. a Framework for the Analysis of the Visual Representation and Constitution of Suffering

Since the evolving global interest in them, children are constituted as a especially vulnerable group. Based on an analysis of visual representations of children in flagship reports of International Organisations, I propose a framework for theorising and analysing the visual constitution and representation of suffering in two forms. 

The first form of images of suffering is based on visual media such as photography and paintings, which represent specific individual and collective cases in aesthetic and documentary logics. A second form of representing suffering is based on numerical data and indicators and takes the form of lists (e.g. statistical tables with country-specific data in alphabetical order), rank-ordered lists (e.g. the Under-5-Mortality-Ranking), and graphical forms (e.g. world maps). Especially this second form deserves closer attention and theorisation, as it not only integrates numerical and graphical elements but moreover two distinct logics: simplification and complexity in transforming social phenomena into data and data into images representing social phenomena. I will discuss firstly the line of complexity running from simple listings to positioning to visually transforming data; and secondly, the line of simplification by which all three forms transform the complexity of social phenomena into visual clarity; a process in which diverging interpretations are hidden behind the visual representation, and ambiguity and interpretative openness is transformed into graphical decidedness.

I will conclude by linking the visual analysis back to semantic representations, as images of suffering are embedded in discursive frames through which their meaning is shaped, enacted, and specified. I will present the change of discursive frames with regard to the constitution of children from objects of humanitarian action to bearers of human rights, to human capital, and human potential; and the consequences of these shifts in meaning for the representation of suffering in visual forms.