Insecurities other than those following from the use of large-scale violence often escape professional visual representation and are absent from visual global politics. However, violence may continue despite seemingly peaceful interactions – in the margins of international relations and elsewhere. In this intervention, we focus on the visualization of everyday insecurities in Ghana, a country that, according to conflict data projects, qualifies as peaceful. By discussing a social media video of the killing of a military officer, we show ways in which statistical, quantitative approaches and qualitative analyses of visual representations of violence can join hands to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of patterns of violence. We discuss the video, secondly, to direct attention to the importance of social media in reporting everyday violence. Thirdly, we wish to emphasize everyday violence and insecurities in a country that, in terms of international conflict, qualifies as peaceful. Fourthly, we wish to submit that personal insecurities and individual sensitivities of fear render peace, including peace of mind, impossible. This emphasis reflects the focus on the protection of individuals underlying human security concepts. We describe the video, finally, to speculate about causality between violence, images of violence and politics.
The article is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2019.1667679.