International Affairs Webinar: How Images Frame China's Role in African Development

Images play a key role in how development is understood. For instance, images depicting trade, labour, agriculture and migration in Africa–China relations can appear to tell a story of unfolding industrialization and modernization—what we recognize as development.

However, images also have the ability to reproduce the ideas and values of powerful institutions and leave certain structural violence invisible to the viewer. Using widely circulated images depicting China's impact on African development in western news media sources as an example, this webinar demonstrates the importance of visual politics to policy-making.