Affective Imageries: Visual Politics of Wounded Bodies in Timor-Leste analyzes the political mobilization of images of wounded bodies in conflict and post-conflict societies. The book goes beyond traditional analyses of visual politics to offer a new perspective on the construction of affective imageries by considering the importance of poems, photographs and artworks, and calling attention to other ways in which bodies can be affected by conflicts beyond the debate over the physical wounds of war. Connecting debates on visual politics affects and memory studies, and drawing lessons from the East Timorese case, Marcelle Trote Martins reveals how 'affective imageries' are created and mobilized, determining the status of the bodies shown in the images, and the kind of (international) attention they merit.
Marcelle Trote Martins is a Teaching Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University.
Introduction. Affective Imageries of Timor-Leste Chapter 1. The Affective Power of the Image Chapter 2. Visual Politics of Wounded Bodies Chapter 3. Visualising Atrocities through Poetry: Resistance in East Timor Chapter 4. Photographs of Horror: Mobilising Solidarity for Timor-Leste Conclusion. A New Framework for Visual Politics
"An analytically sophisticated exploration of memorialisation and the 'body-in-suffering' through an empirically rich study into the case of Timor-Leste. This book feeds into and builds on contemporary debates around the body in/and global politics, affect, and visual politics while illustrating the power of images and poetry towards underlining how 'we can visually access suffering beyond the visceral images of violence.'" -- Kandida Purnell, Richmond American University of London "In this thought-provoking volume, Trote Martins brings together key theoretical arguments on brutal forms of violence, atrocities, wounded bodies, and horror and their relation to visual politics to develop her own concept of 'bodies-in-suffering'. Trote Martins compellingly and poignantly applies the notion of 'bodies-in-suffering' to a series of highly visible or more occluded massacres in Timor-Leste in the 1990s to deploy an important analysis of what she calls the "affective potential of suffering" in global politics. Such an affective potential, enabled through visual or imagined apprehensions of wounded, pained, maimed, disappeared, or pulverized bodies, is crucial to helping human subjects, irrespective of where they are located, to develop a salutary ethical connection to others in distress and to respond to extreme modes of political violence. Scholars of politics interested in questions of violence, affect and emotions, visual representation, and global ethics will be eager to read this excellently crafted study." -- Francois Debrix, Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, author of Global Powers of Horror "The independence of Timor-Leste was aided significantly by ruptures in Indonesia's attempted control over images emerging from the occupied territory, most notable in the case of Max Stahl's footage of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre. Affective Imageries of Timor-Leste offers detailed analysis of visual representations of suffering during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste, providing a compelling account the role of images in the independence movement, and in mobilising international solidarity." -- Michael Leach, Swinburne University of Technology
