Preface: What Is Visual Citizenship?

As an organizing concept, “visual citizenship” treats participation in political life as something operating and experienced beyond legal properties and pregiven juridical frames. After all, much of what we know about the relations between citizens—and between citizens and non-citizens—happens from a distance, among common strangers, audiovisually. What we see and hear, how we see and hear, according to whom, and where condition the way people in acute and everyday crises debate meaningfully about how they are governed. Rights talk beyond mere expressions of victimhood is an important theme.