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Fractured Gazes: Dual Perspectives and the Construction of Truth in International Relations
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: Visual IR
DOI: 10.64388/IREV9I10-1716351
Abstract
This dissertation, “Fractured Gazes: Dual Perspectives and the Construction of Truth in International Relations”, investigates the visual turn in IR, where aesthetic images, movies, soundtracks, and drone footage are actively constructing perspectival truths instead of reflecting objective reality. Based on Foucault's paradigm of power and knowledge and Mulvey's theory of the gaze, this research investigates the fractured gazes of elite voyeurism, which constructs security and heroism discourses, and subaltern gazes that expose ethical fractures and partialities. Using visual semiotics and discourse analysis, this research deconstructs five cases: the Bollywood films ‘Haider’ (2014) and ‘Madras Café’ (2013) on South Asian insurgencies, the Hollywood drone films ‘Eye in the Sky’ (2015) and ‘Good Kill’ (2014), and ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’ (1970) on Pearl Harbor, to demonstrate how dual gazes aestheticize violence, manipulate emotions through soundtracks, and fracture truth into multiplicities that correspond to Butler's grievable lives and Baudrillard's hyperreality. The results contest positivist IR, encouraging a post-structuralist integration of the visual as a discursive space that maintains hegemony but also enables the possibility of resistance, with implications for policy reflexivity (e.g., drone ethics) and media ethics (balanced journalism). Through the proof of truth as "gazed into existence," this research encourages IR scholars to take up aesthetic contestation in image-dense geopolitics, opening the way for future research on AI visuals and cyber warfare.
Keywords
Visual Turn; Fractured Gazes; Aesthetic IR; Power-Knowledge
References
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[4] Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18.
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How to cite this paper
@article{1716351,
author = {Anshin M Thomas},
title = {Fractured Gazes: Dual Perspectives and the Construction of Truth in International Relations},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2026},
volume = {9},
number = {10},
pages = {1547-1555},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1716351.pdf},
abstract = {This dissertation, “Fractured Gazes: Dual Perspectives and the Construction of Truth in International Relations”, investigates the visual turn in IR, where aesthetic images, movies, soundtracks, and drone footage are actively constructing perspectival truths instead of reflecting objective reality. Based on Foucault's paradigm of power and knowledge and Mulvey's theory of the gaze, this research investigates the fractured gazes of elite voyeurism, which constructs security and heroism discourses, and subaltern gazes that expose ethical fractures and partialities. Using visual semiotics and discourse analysis, this research deconstructs five cases: the Bollywood films ‘Haider’ (2014) and ‘Madras Café’ (2013) on South Asian insurgencies, the Hollywood drone films ‘Eye in the Sky’ (2015) and ‘Good Kill’ (2014), and ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’ (1970) on Pearl Harbor, to demonstrate how dual gazes aestheticize violence, manipulate emotions through soundtracks, and fracture truth into multiplicities that correspond to Butler's grievable lives and Baudrillard's hyperreality. The results contest positivist IR, encouraging a post-structuralist integration of the visual as a discursive space that maintains hegemony but also enables the possibility of resistance, with implications for policy reflexivity (e.g., drone ethics) and media ethics (balanced journalism). Through the proof of truth as "gazed into existence," this research encourages IR scholars to take up aesthetic contestation in image-dense geopolitics, opening the way for future research on AI visuals and cyber warfare.},
keywords = {Visual Turn; Fractured Gazes; Aesthetic IR; Power-Knowledge},
month = {April},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I10-1716351}
}