Visualising the COVID-19 pandemic through tropes: an autoethnographic and critical perspective

The article explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified a narrative of uncertainty, perpetuating existing social hierarchies related to gender and racial discrimination. Using a critical visual IR framework, this study analyses visual representations of the pandemic, from 30 January 2020 – when the WHO declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern – through the end of 2021. It adopts an autoethnographic approach to identify thematic patterns and interpret how they fuel a narrative of uncertainty that supports the survival of structural power dynamics. Three main tropes have been observed: the ‘lethality’ of the virus, institutional ‘unpreparedness’, and ‘the erosion of individual rights and freedoms’. In all three cases, racial and gendered forms of discrimination are subtly propagated through the visuals. This investigation expands the meaning of pandemic visualisation, positioning it as a global event with far-reaching social and political implications beyond its immediate health effects.