Visual Politics of Flight and War. Imag(in)ing Deservingness and Agentic Victimhood of Ukrainian Refugees after Russia’s 2022 Invasion

Abstract Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and people started to flee the war, differences in treatment between Ukrainian refugees and non-White refugees became evident. In contrast to an otherwise racialized and securitized migration discourse, media discourse was mostly benevolent, and the EU activated its Temporary Protection Directive within days, while non-White residents of Ukraine were partly refused entry at the EU’s borders. Focusing on visual representations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 2022 on social media and news media, this article explores how visual discourses and practices construct deservingness in the context of high-risk migration and how this is entangled with racialized orders and constitutions of Selves. Based on a visual discourse analysis of 4,000+ images generated through digital ethnography, I argue that the visual discourse on flight and war in Ukraine centrally differed from dominant discourses on flight-migration from the Global South by representing Ukrainians as identifiable, relatable, and agentic victims. In contrast to one-dimensional representations of refugees as either powerless victims or potential threats, this multidimensional representation has the potential to evoke a number of positive emotional registers in spectators, allows for identification, and therefore creates conditions of possibility for inclusionary migration and border policies.