Everyday visuality and risk management: Representing (in)security in UN peacekeeping

ABSTRACT

Visuality is a central aspect of everyday security governance. In the recent visual turn in International Relations, however, the more mundane and routine visualities of security have been widely neglected. To address this gap, this article proposes a framework for analyzing the messages of security and risk conveyed by different modes of visual representations, ranging from press photos and educational images to outwardly appearances. Taking the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) as an example, it shows that everyday visual representations reflect and contribute to security risk management in four ways: (1) They assist in the construction of self and other identities with regard to security, (2) they help to identify potential vulnerabilities, (3) they are used to educate people how to detect, assess, and behave in risky situations, and (4) they are employed to deter violent attacks.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual
• everyday
• risk
• UN
• peacekeeping

Visuality is a central aspect of everyday practices of security governance, ranging from color-coded terrorism-risk scales to the outwardly appearance of peacekeeping operations. In the recent "visual turn" in International Relations, however, such mundane and routine visualities have been largely neglected in favor of a focus on visual spectacles and shocking images (Heck & Schlag, 2012, pp. 892–894). This article helps to address this gap by proposing a framework for analyzing the messages of security and risk conveyed by different modes of everyday visual representation in contemporary security risk management. It suggests that visual images and appearances are implicated in security management in four main ways: (1) They assist in the construction of self and other identities with regard to security, (2) they help to identify potential vulnerabilities, (3) they are used to educate people how to detect, assess, and behave in risky situations, and (4) they are employed to deter violent attacks.

Due to the growing popularity of security risk management approaches among states, international organizations, transnational industries, and humanitarian agencies, its relationship with visual representations of security and risk applies to a growing range of issues, countries, and agents in national and international security governance (Aradau et al., 2008; Aradau & van Munster, 2007; Beerli, 2018; Lund Petersen, 2011). Yet, what kinds of everyday visualities are at play in security risk management varies significantly between actors and operations. The second part of this article uses the United Nations (UN) Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), one of the largest and longest lasting peacekeeping operations to date, as an example to illustrate the potential application and utility of the proposed framework. It contends that UN peacekeeping missions provide an excellent demonstration of the operation of routine visualities of security and risk because they involve different forms of visual representation that touch upon all of the preceding four functions. The following analysis specifically investigates three different kinds of visual representations in the context of MONUSCO. First, there are the promotional photographs commissioned by MONUSCO that help to elucidate how the mission visually constructs itself and others with regard to security and risk. Second, there are the educational representations of the UN security training module Basic Security in the Field II (BSITF II) that teaches UN staff how to visually identify, assess, and respond to potential security risks when travelling to or working in the field. Third, there are the direct physical representations of MONUSCO peacekeeping personnel, property, and technologies as well as the outwardly appearance and signification of compounds and vehicles that act as the visible interface between the UN mission and local populations.

MONUSCO offers a particularly interesting case study of the relationship between visuality and the construction and production of security because it has been one of the first UN peacekeeping operations tasked with the priority mandate to provide effective security for the civilian population (UN Security Council, 2010, 2012). In addition, the mission coincides with the introduction of security risk management in UN peacekeeping. The case study shows how visual analysis may deepen our understanding of the mission’s definition and practices of security and risk and explores how these insights may contribute to explaining why the protection of the civilian population appears to be MONUSCO’s main weakness (Boutellis, 2013; Bureau d’Etudes, de Recherches et de Consulting International, 2005, 2015; Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network, 2019).

In the following, the article is structured into six sections. The first section outlines its contributions to International Relations and Security Studies. The second section delineates how the logic of security risk management shapes everyday visual representations in and of security governance. The third section proposes a framework for investigating the meanings carried by multiple and diverse forms of visual representations. The fourth section examines how this framework may help to expose everyday visual messages of security and risk in MONUSCO. The fifth section discusses what we can learn from these messages about the preconceptions and practical logics underpinning the mission’s approach to security risk management. The article concludes that analyzing visual representations may deepen our understanding of security in particular where everyday practices seem to contradict official discourses and policies.

Visuality and security

The visual turn in International Relations has led to a growing interest in the relationship between visual representations and the construction and production of security. A major focus has been on visual securitization. A special issue on “Securitization, Militarization and Visual Culture in the Worlds of Post-9/11,” edited by Campbell and Shapiro (2007), was perhaps the first within the discipline to analyze comprehensively how “the forces at work in contemporary visual culture … have affected practices of securitization and militarization” (p. 132). The contributors focused on the role of visual spectacles, iconic images, controversial cartoons, dissident art, disturbing photos of torture and bodies in pain, film and TV dramas in political processes of global security governance as well as their resistance. A common denominator was their concern with the extraordinary and the visual spectacles that make possible the securitizing move (Campbell & Shapiro, 2007).

Since then, the analysis of visual representations in international politics has become a growing and vibrant field of research (e.g., Hansen, 2011; Heck & Schlag, 2012; Kearns, 2017; Saugmann Andersen, 2017; Schlag & Geis, 2017; Vuori & Saugmann Andersen, 2018). However, the routine visualities that are part of national and international security governance are still less widely analyzed (Andersen et al., 2015; Coaffee et al., 2009). This article takes Mitchell’s (2002, p. 170) definition of visuality as pertaining to “everyday practices of seeing and showing” as a point of departure to argue that visual representations play an important role not only in securitization, but also in practices of security that are often treated as “unremarkable, taken-for-granted, or ostensibly natural” (Crane-Seeber, 2011, p. 450).

The following analysis contributes to the literatures on visuality, security, and risk in three ways. First, it expands upon existing research on the importance of visuality for understanding the construction and production of security (Aradau et al., 2008; Bleiker, 2018; Campbell & Shapiro, 2007; Schlag & Geis, 2017). Specifically, the article shows that visual analysis adds another dimension to our understanding of security beyond discourses and practices. Exploring this dimension is vital because visual representations work in unique ways due to their immediacy, circulability, and ambiguity (Hansen, 2011, pp. 55–58). Visual images and tools operate not only on more direct and emotive levels than discourse. The ability to view visual images without particular skills also facilitates their global circulation and potential impact (Hansen, 2011, pp. 56–57). Most audiences thus treat visual images “as giving evidence of reality, producing objective knowledge rather than subjective articulations” (Saugmann Andersen, 2017, p. 357).

Second, the article demonstrates that even seemingly mundane visual modalities are deeply implicated in security governance. It thus adds to a small, but growing strand of literature concerned with everyday visual artefacts and representations of security (Andersen et al., 2015; Coaffee et al., 2009; Power, 2007; Shepherd, 2018; Smirl, 2015). Andersen et al. (2015), for instance, show that color acts as a “central and efficient semiotic vehicle in many systems of signification that participate in the classification, hierarchization and marking of individuals, groups, ideas, values, and so on, into specific symbolic categories” (p. 442) with regard to security and insecurity. Coaffee et al. (2009) observe that architectural counter-terrorism measures in many Western cities provide visual messages that affect how security is perceived by various stakeholders. Power (2007) as well as Valeriano and Habel (2016) look into the visual construction of enemy combatants and threats in video games disseminated by the U.S. Department of Defense and the gaming industry. In short, a wide variety of visual modalities routinely reflect and influence practices, ideas, and perceptions of security and risk.

Third and in response to the above, the article proposes a framework for analyzing the messages of security carried by diverse modes of everyday visualities. It argues that iconological analysis is particularly suited for this purpose because it is concerned “with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form” (Panofsky, 1957, p. 26, as cited in Rose, 2001, p. 144). Looking for common visual codes or symbols, iconological interpretation can be consistently applied to images, artefacts, and activities, such as architecture, apparel, bodies, and behavior (Coaffee et al., 2009; Higate & Henry, 2010; Shepherd, 2018). Rather than treating physical appearance as merely functionally or aesthetically determined, iconological examination is sensitive to the performative aspects of visual exteriors and practices. To highlight the performative nature of visuality, the following uses the term “representation” for mediated images as well as for physical semblances. Physical manifestations are not simply present or presented, they also visually represent a certain message.

However, there are also clear limitations to this article and the iconological method. The most important one lies in the variation of visual symbols and their meanings between different professional, cultural, and historical environments (Hansen, 2011, p. 58; Rose, 2001, p. 60; Saugmann Andersen, 2017, p. 357). White color, for example, acts as a visual code for the UN in the realm of security and peacekeeping, whereas white stands for cleanliness and freshness in advertisement and fashion. In short, iconological analysis only makes sense within specific contexts. The context of this article and the proposed framework is defined by two milieus: the professional and interpretative field of security, and what has been described as “Western” visual culture (Bleiker, 2018; Campbell, 2003; Hansen, 2011). The field of security refers to the visual language of a particular community of practice that shares “routines, words, tools, ways of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, genres, actions, or concepts” (Wenger, 1998, p. 83). In addition, security denotes the functions and impacts that are the focus of the following analysis. It distinguishes between the security implications of MONUSCO’s visual representations and other objectives and effects, such as (self-)legitimization, public information, facilitating esprit de corps, or influencing local attitudes (Oksamytna, 2018; von Billerbeck, 2020). The term “Western” has been used to subsume visual codes that have their historical and cultural origins in American and European art, film, and other visual artefacts (Van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2011). Just like the “English” language is taught and understood around the world, these visual codes are increasingly disseminated to international audiences due to globalized media. Divergent interpretations are nevertheless always possible, between as well as within visual cultures (Mirzoeff, 1998). Iconological analysis thus provides only one plausible reading based on dominant meanings of visual codes in particular contexts. To better understand these environments, the next two sections outline the professional and visual contexts of international security risk management.

Visual practices and security risk management

Like many governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations and humanitarian actors, the UN adopted security risk management in the new millennium (Aradau et al., 2008; Beerli, 2018; Duffield, 2010; UNSECOORD, 2004, p. 2). Following a major attack on the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad that killed 16 UN staff and injured over 150 persons, the UN’s Director of Security Coordination, Diana Russler, concluded:

Commercial companies, industries and state entities all use risk management as part of their efforts to mitigate the effects of possible adverse events. To implement effective, efficient and safe operations in hazardous environments, the United Nations system must do likewise. (UNSECOORD, 2004, p. 2)

The implications for UN missions have been significant, including not only the expansion of the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), but also a tightening of security measures, enhanced security training for UN staff, and the adoption of more robust, military approaches to peacekeeping in some countries (Andersson & Weigand, 2015; Duffield, 2010).

A fundamental change in the definition of security has supported these developments. Whereas traditional approaches proceeded from the assumption that security could be attained by addressing clearly defined threats, security risk management asserts that zero risk can never be achieved due to the volatility and incalculability of postmodern dangers (Lund Petersen, 2011, pp. 703–705). The definition of risk as the probability of harm multiplied by its likely impact has led to the conclusion that risks can only be “managed” through permanent surveillance, analysis, and containment (Aradau & van Munster, 2007). The process of security risk management typically involves three stages: risk identification, risk assessment, and risk mitigation (Habegger, 2008; UN, 2017, Chapter IV). At the first stage, risk identification singles out specific individuals or groups as potential targets or sources of insecurity. Risk profiling, i.e., the analysis of an actor’s characteristics and typical behavior, plays a major part in constructing who is and who is not considered to be at risk or a risk. These risk profiles are situated in broader societal and organizational discourses about “us” and potentially hostile “others” (Beerli, 2018). At the second stage, risk assessments establish the probabilities and likely impacts of distinctive security risks. A principal method are vulnerability assessments. They estimate the level of risk in terms of an actor’s exposure and weaknesses, defined by its behavior and ability to repel or survive an attack. Since security risk management ascribes risks to specific individuals, agencies, and locations these targets are also considered responsible for managing their own security. At the third stage, risk mitigation aims to prevent or limit potential harm. Typical is the focus on precautionary measures. The “precautionary principle” advises preventative action even if there is no evidence of danger because the concept of risk always includes the potential of unknown and unknown-unknown hazards (Aradau & van Munster, 2007, p. 102). Surveillance and protective technologies and services not only seek to ensure that a potential attack will cause no or little harm, but also serve as deterrents to future aggression and as assurance for those who are protected.

Due to the preceding logics, security risk management draws on and utilizes visual representations in distinctive ways. Visual images and appearances can thus offer important insights into how security and risk are constructed and reproduced by security risk management. At the first stage of security risk management, visual representations are elementary for constructing and understanding an actor’s self- and other identities with regard to risk and security. As Amoore (2007, p. 218) writes, visual images and appearances help to “identify ‘us’ and delineate ‘us’ from the untrustworthy aliens.” At a basic societal level, it precedes and shapes the understanding of risky individuals by security professionals and may be influenced by cultural and historical elements, such as sexism, colonialism, and white supremacism (Dixit, 2014; Methmann, 2014). Security management manuals and courses, for instance, employ a wide range of visual representations from the photos of suspects to cartoons of specific identity groups as guides to potential threats. Visual codes like beards, burkas, skin color, uniforms, and weapons, not only assign specific identities to individuals, e.g., Muslim, citizen of a developing country, or security personnel, but also are explicitly linked to distinct risk profiles. Visual profiles determine who is regarded as suspect and who is worthy of attention (Martin, 2018, p. 259). Security risk management procedures aimed at identifying risky persons are thus deeply implicated in the emergence of what Amoore (2007, p. 216) has termed a “vigilant mode of visuality.” Ironically, visual risk profiling may contribute to perceptions of insecurity due to its inherent ambiguity. While encouraging unremitting vigilance, visual representations always leave a shadow of doubt over the true level of risk posed by a potential suspect.

Security risk management also examines visual representations for the purpose of risk assessment. Visual appraisals of physical vulnerabilities are a central aspect of security risk management, including site surveys to detect gaps in external and internal security measures (UN, 2017, p. 72). In addition, access controls and surveillance technologies employ photographic or live images to monitor the presence, number, and behavior of purportedly risky individuals (UN, 2017, p. 73). Both strategies search visual representations for pre-defined codes to identify vulnerabilities, dangerous situations, or threatening activities. Among others, vulnerabilities are connected to visible indicators, such as low fences, open windows, and hotel rooms on ground or first floors. Potentially hazardous environments and contexts are linked to visual markers like narrow and dark alleys or check-points along a rural road. Dangerous activities are associated with observable transgressions and misbehavior. These sorts of visuality play an important role in the assessment of danger by security professionals and help to educate clients to visually recognize vulnerabilities and perilous contexts. Visual imaging thus helps to responsibilize persons for their own risk management. Trained to be inherently suspicious, they learn to permanently monitor their environment for potential risks.

Lastly, security risk management uses visuality for risk mitigation and assurance. Foremost, security risk management invests in physical appearances to minimize risks. Visible protection is a key feature of precautionary risk management (UN, 2017, p. 93). On the one hand, it aims to visually convince would-be aggressors of the futility of an assault. On the other hand, it seeks to assure the protected of their own safety and security. Appearances and activities connected to security risk management are thus frequently designed to serve as visual deterrents (UN, 2017, p. 72). Military uniforms, ostentatious displays of weapons, and physical fitness visually demonstrate an actor’s willingness and capability to use force (Higate & Henry, 2010; Shepherd, 2018). High fences, barbed wires, regular security patrols, and security checks at gates contribute to the visual manifestation of safe areas (Duffield, 2010). Regular patrols, exercises, and parades serve as visible demonstrations of security and protection (Higate & Henry, 2010).

Analyzing everyday visualities

The iconological method is particularly suited for analyzing the messages conveyed by diverse modes of everyday visuality. It proceeds from the assumption that images, appearances, and behavior transport meaning through visual symbols and codes that are common knowledge within particular social groups, professions, and cultures (Heck & Schlag, 2012; Mirzoeff, 1998; Rose, 2001, pp. 135–163). The broad applicability of the approach is illustrated by Erwin Panofsky’s explanation of the difference between pre-iconographic, iconographic, and iconological visual interpretations in the example of a male acquaintance greeting him on the street by lifting his hat (Rose, 2001, p. 144). A pre-iconographic interpretation of this visual image or performance would identify a “man” raising a “hat”; an iconographic interpretation would see a man “greeting”; and an iconological interpretation would view “the gesture of lifting the hat as a symptom of that man’s whole personality and background” (Rose, 2001, p. 145).

Whereas other methods of visual analysis, such as compositional interpretation and content studies, require clearly delineated images or frames to derive meaning from unique combinations of content, color, spatial organization, and expression (Rose, 2001, pp. 33–68), symbolic codes can be observed in mediated images, physical appearances, and visual performances alike (Rose, 2001, pp. 144–145). The iconological method therefore offers a consistent framework for investigating and comparing visual messages across a variety of representational modalities. In contrast to more complex and detailed compositional examinations of visual images, the iconological method also has the advantage of permitting the investigation of large numbers of representations. Quantitative content analysis is one way to conduct iconological research (Methmann, 2014). However, quantification is problematic where the number and boundaries of visual representations are not clearly defined, as in the case of real-life visual appearances. Rose (2001, p. 143) suggests therefore that an iconological study should select representations for analysis that “are likely to be particularly productive, or particularly interesting.” Due to these limitations and to illustrate both methods, the following carries out a basic quantitative analysis of the photographic images of the peacekeeping mission, whereas the other sections focus on depictions and elements of the mission’s outwardly appearance that seem particularly revealing with regard to the construction of security and risk.

Key to understanding iconological codes lies in analyzing the symbolic content of visual representations by situating them within specific contexts (Hansen, 2011, p. 53; Heck & Schlag, 2012, p. 899; Rose, 2001, p. 145). The literatures on visual securitization and visuality in international relations have covered a lot of ground on prevailing visual symbols for security and risk in American and European visual cultures (Bleiker, 2018; Campbell, 2003). Andersen et al. (2015, p. 441; see also Guillaume et al., 2016) highlight the use of color in “the classification, hierarchization and marking of individuals, groups, ideas, values, and so on, into specific symbolic categories (e.g., class, gender, nation, race or security).” Hansen (2011, p. 63) remarks on the “image of ‘the non-Western’ as looking wilder, more rural, and less modern than a Western subject” in her analysis of Danish cartoons. Kearns (2017, p. 495) notes gendered visual representations of insecurity and threat, such as the depiction of women wearing the burka to signify “the threatening otherness and inferiority of Islam.” Research on peacekeepers shows that public displays of specific activities and artefacts, such as patrols, uniforms, and weapons, act as visual markers for security that are widely understood also by their local audiences (Higate & Henry, 2010). The preceding studies suggest that maleness, beards, dark colors, dark skin and hair, unkempt or unclean physical appearance, camouflage patterns, burkas, turbans, uniforms, and weapons serve as common visual codes for risk and insecurity. By contrast, females, children, bright colors, light skin and hair, fortifications, advanced security technologies, white vehicles, the UN logo, body armor, blue helmets, static and mobile patrols typically signify security and protection. All of these can be placed within a broader range of visual symbols that are transported by film, videogames, and cartoons, including darkness and bad weather as signs of danger or evil, sun and light as a symbol for peace and tranquility, and the image of the hero riding into the sunset (Bleiker, 2018). Additional iconological codes for security and risk can be identified by investigating messages assigned to visual representations through accompanying texts (Rose, 2001, p. 147). Drawing on these visual codes, the next section offers an iconological reading of everyday visual representations of security and risk in the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO.

Representing security and risk in MONUSCO

MONUSCO is one of the longest and largest UN peacekeeping missions. It followed the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) that was created in 1999 to oversee the implementation of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. MONUC was designed as a peacebuilding effort and tasked with facilitating peaceful elections (UN Security Council, 1999). Despite the operation’s expansion from about 5000 to over 20,000 peacekeepers, the security environment in the DRC continued to deteriorate. In 2010, the UN decided to make its peacekeeping more robust by investing the successor mission MONUSCO with a peace enforcement mandate. MONUSCO’s main objective was to be the provision of security with priority assigned to the protection of civilians (UN Security Council, 2010, 2012). To carry out its new mandate, the operation was subsequently equipped with the UN’s first ever military Force Intervention Brigade (Boutellis, 2013). Regardless of its strong mandate and fighting force, MONUSCO has faced widespread criticism over its security management (Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network, 2019; Hunt, 2017; von Billerbeck, 2017). In the unstable eastern regions Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, many Congolese citizens believe that MONUSCO is failing to protect them despite the mission’s large military presence there (Bureau d’Etudes, de Recherches et de Consulting International, 2005, 2015; Congo Research Group, 2016; Oxfam, 2012, 2014).

The reasons for MONUSCO’s weaknesses are manifold and complex (Autesserre, 2014; Jennings, 2016; Schouten, 2014). This case study investigates in what ways visual analysis may complement and enhance other explanations. In particular, the following analysis suggests that MONUSCO’s everyday visual representations not only reflect the mission’s self-understanding and definitions of security and risk but may also contribute to the reproduction and dissemination of these understandings among various audiences. In the case of MONUSCO, these understandings help to explain how it has become possible that the mission appears to neglect the protection of the civilian population.

Since the modalities of everyday visual representations differ widely between organizations, missions, and environments it is first necessary to identify visual images and appearances relevant for the construction and production of security and risk. One way is to look for visual representations involved in the three stages of security risk management, i.e., risk identification, assessment, and mitigation. In particular, three visual modalities contribute directly and indirectly to these functions in MONUSCO: the promotional photographs commissioned by MONUSCO, the educational images and cartoons of the BSITF II online security training, and the direct physical appearances of MONUSCO staff, facilities, and operations.

Although MONUSCO peacekeepers and civilian staff come from many countries, it can be assumed that all three visual representations draw to a large degree on the “Western” visual language outlined in the preceding section. Three observations account for this assumption. First, between 2011 and 2018, the majority of MONUSCO’s promotional images were taken by Swiss-born professional photographer Sylvain Liechti. Second, the BSITF II online security training and its contents were centrally designed by UNDSS in New York. Finally, international staff from UNDSS shape significantly the outwardly appearance of MONUSCO and other UN missions with guidelines published in the United Nations Security Management System Manual and by overseeing their implementation in all UN peacekeeping operations (UN, 2017). The professional and visual cultures of the UN’s New York headquarters thus determine to a large extent how security and risk are visually presented by the UN and MONUSCO. The following parts examine each mode of representation in turn.

Promotional representations

Both MONUSCO and its predecessor MONUC have hired embedded photojournalists to take pictures from each mission.¹ Despite contributions by several photographers, including not only Sylvain Liechti, but also Clara Padovan, Myriam Asmani, and Abel Kavanagh, MONUSCO’s photo series is characterized by very a consistent depiction of the mission and various sections of the Congolese population. On the one hand, these photos reflect MONUSCO’s actual visual appearance and operations as determined by the peacekeeping contingents, their robust mandate, and the precarious security situation in the east of the DRC (MONUSCO, 2020a; UN Security Council, 2017). On the other hand, the selection of the 244 photos posted for free use on https://www.unmultimedia.org also entails a decision by the UN Department of Global Communications in New York on how and what it wants to present as “MONUSCO” to a wide range of potential national and international audiences. Its decision determines the main contents of the featured images as well as the prevalence of visual codes, such as color, light, darkness, clouds, and sunsets, or the relative positioning of subjects towards another. Table 1, thus, reveals a clear bias in this selection in favor of MONUSCO’s military functions, whereas other aspects of its operations, such as child protection, public policing, civil affairs, disarmament and demobilization, and security sector reform are systematically underrepresented (MONUSCO, 2020b).

Table 1. MONUSCO promotional photos.

Main content	Frequency	Common visual codes
Military
Peacekeepers on patrol, watch or in combat	59	Weapons, full body armor, hard blue helmets, camouflage uniforms, face paint, sitting in white tanks or armored vehicles with UN logo, marching along tracks, crouching, carrying guns, serious faces, shown from distance/back/in dark silhouette, dark clouds, sunset
Parades and ceremonies	17	Flags, coffins, bright colors, national costumes, sunshine
UN military bases, fortifications and technology	12	Towers, planes, tanks, walls, barbed wire, white color, UN logo, shown in dark silhouette, dark skies
Disarmament	6	Weapons
Civilian
Politicians and UN officials visiting or meeting	43	Suits, smiling, seated, walking, shaking hands, shown close up/looking up to, sunshine
Humanitarian assistance	9	Children, wounded, “red cross” logo
Peacekeepers at leisure	3	No weapons, soft blue caps, civilian uniforms
Civilian UN vehicles	2	White color, UN logo
Local population
Local women and children	25	Bright colors, women, children, smiling, working, playing, shown close up/looking down on, sunshine, barbed wire, weapons, UN peacekeepers
FARDC soldiers	9	Weapons, camouflage uniforms, sprawling, celebrating
Ex-combatants	6	Grim faces, waiting, dark colors, shown from back
Internally displaced persons and camps	3	Tents, shown from air
Local civilian men	3	Civilian clothes, carrying tools
Various
Vulcanology research project (not part of MONUSCO)	11
Shoes, local festival, dummy soldier, city view, old prison, painted rock, trees with bullet holes	8

The largest number of photos show MONUSCO as a militarized fighting force. A total of 59 images depict strongly armed peacekeepers, peacekeepers in combat gear and UN patrols in armored tanks or vehicles with mounted weapons.² Their hard blue helmets and white vehicles with the UN logo make them instantly recognizable as UN peacekeepers. At the same time, the images and their symbols make it clear that MONUSCO is not a peace force, but there to fight. Already the second field photo of MONUSCO signifies military strength and combat action with a close-up of a Guatemalan Special Forces officer, wearing a camouflage helmet and black paint that hides his face.³

Many images include codes for looming danger, such as dark clouds, red skies, or depictions of peacekeepers in black silhouette.⁴ Some photos seem to show combat operations, including peacekeepers with raised weapons, crouched positions as if taking cover, fierce expressions, or facial paint. Only the subtitles reveal that the majority were taken during training exercises.⁵ Parades and ceremonies are depicted in 17 images, including images of commemoration services for fallen soldiers reminiscent of war photography. Flag-covered coffins symbolize the sacrifices that troop contributing nations are making. Distinctive national parade uniforms and flags emphasize the diverse nationalities of the peacekeeping contingents. Several parades also show peacekeepers in combat uniforms and militarized rituals within the boundaries of the UN’s bases.⁶ Local civilians are missing from these pictures, suggesting that the ceremonies are primarily for the peacekeepers themselves. Another military theme is the depiction of MONUSCO’s security measures, including 12 photos of fortifications and military technologies. The photos connect the mission to symbols for protection, effective defense, and technological superiority, such as watch towers, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles.⁷

The civilian side of MONUSCO’s everyday operations, such as justice support, security sector reform, medical, human rights, and gender activities, is rarely featured (MONUSCO, 2020b). Although 43 photos show high-level officials visiting the peacekeeping mission or meeting with local politicians, there are only nine images of humanitarian or medical aid. The latter often depict only the recipients, thereby further deemphasizing the involvement of UN staff in civilian functions.⁸ Children as primary beneficiaries of aid simultaneously signify the divergent roles and implicit hierarchy of the UN and the local population. The UN peacekeepers are also rarely depicted as civilians, such as engaging in leisure activities.⁹

The photos visually divide the Congolese population into two groups. On the one hand are 25 images of local women and children. Their sex, age, smiles, brightly colored clothes, waving of hands, and lack of weapons symbolize peacefulness and low risk.¹⁰ Often, however, women and children remain in the background of armed peacekeepers, signaling the minor importance of civilians in comparison to the combat mission.¹¹ Depictions of children, who usually stand for innocence, are combined with codes that signify the danger of the local environment, such as barbed wire, weapons, and tanks.¹²

The preceding visual representations contrast markedly with the militarized appearance of members of the Congolese Armed Forces (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, FARDC) and ex-combatants in the UN’s selection of photos. Nine images show soldiers from the FARDC, recognizable by their camouflage uniforms, light weapons, and the absence of the signatory blue helmets. Presented sprawling on the ground or celebrating a victory, they appear less orderly and disciplined than the UN peacekeepers.¹³

Six photos of disarmed rebels usually contain visual references to their former military identities, such as military line ups, stern facial expressions, or clothes and caps in camouflage colors and patterns.¹⁴ Often the ex-combatants are shown from the back or the faces are out of focus, turning them into an unidentifiable group.¹⁵ With the exception of Congolese politicians, there are only two photographs focused on local men in civilian functions or environments. They seem not to exist in the DRC.

Educational representations

All persons travelling on UN business have to complete the UN’s online security training BSITF II.¹⁶ The course uses two types of visual material, cartoons and photographs, to teach UN personnel how to visually identify potential security risks, minimize individual vulnerabilities, and respond to danger in ways deemed appropriate by UNDSS. Directed at a clearly defined audience of UN staff, interns, and consultants, a key theme of the course is that UN employees are in danger everywhere in the world. This message is communicated by numerous stereotypical images and accompanying texts. Basic Security Module 3–“On the Move,” for example, shows the cartoon of a white car with UN logo being assaulted by two men, one with white skin and black hair and one with brown skin, who carry guns and backpacks. The visual message that men, arms, dark hair and skin signify danger is supported by a caption reading: “Every time you are in a vehicle, you are a potential target.”¹⁷ Another cartoon shows a white man standing in front of a car that appears to have broken down on an empty dirt road at night. Repeating common visual codes, the white skin serves to identify the UN employee, whereas dirt roads and nightfall indicate risk. The accompanying text confirms this message by admonishing: “Being in a vehicle can give you a false sense of security and may actually make you a target of hijackers and improvised explosive devices.”¹⁸

The page “Outside the Office” asserts very generally “Whenever you are outside the office, you are vulnerable.” However, the visual message is that even within the UN’s compounds there is no absolute safety. A cartoon depicts a man with dark hair and a beard storming into an office, an implement lifted in his hand as if to strike.¹⁹ The white woman behind a desk with UN logo is shown screaming and with her hands raised. The cartoon thus draws on common gender and religious visual codes: women are at risk, while bearded men are dangerous. The captions verify these visual messages, including: “Anticipating a threatening individual” and “Each office should be prepared for the dangerous individual who might be armed and who may attempt to use the premises to express a grievance or make a political statement.”

A second message is that UN employees are responsible for their own security and must be watchful of their surroundings. Many cartoons and interactive scenarios teach UN staff how to visually recognize security risks and recommend precautionary action to minimize them. The cartoon “At the Hotel” shows a slim white woman checking in–clearly, this is meant to be the UN employee. The dark-skinned receptionist assigns her the room number 1001.²⁰ The woman reprimands the receptionist because he said her room number so that it could be overheard by others. She teaches the viewer the correct way to behave by asking the receptionist whether she may select a new room by pointing at one on his list. Several pictures on the next pages ask the user to mark points of concern or interest in the hotel, thus practicing the visual identification of potential security risks and responses. Clicking on elements in the pictures brings up text messages with advice. An image of the hotel hallway, for instance, shows an emergency exit, a fire extinguisher, an open hotel room door, and other features. The next picture presents the hotel room, advising the viewer to check the room for potential intruders hiding in the bathroom and the wardrobe, to always have the curtains drawn, and the windows and doors locked.²¹ The final image in the scenario continues the visual message of UN staff in dangerous local surroundings. It shows the woman on an empty pavement in front of closed shops at night, calling upon typical codes for being at risk, namely female gender, being alone, and darkness. The text “Ms. Evans is alone on a dark deserted street” reinforces the visual message, combining it with the instruction “Ms. Evans should have parked in a fenced parking lot with adequate lighting.”²²

Module 7 “Your Personal Safety” turns to the visual identification of potential security threats when travelling in a host country. The cartoon begins with an image of two people in an UN-marked vehicle on a dirt road outside a wooden hut in an otherwise deserted landscape at night. The quality of the road and the housing visually place the scenario in a developing country, while simultaneously linking them to codes for risk such as being alone and darkness. The caption reads “Case Study—On the Road” and “This story illustrates the importance of returning to base well before darkness or nightfall.”²³ The following image shows a close up of what appears to be a mixed Asian and Caucasian couple–the UN staff–returning from a “dinner event.” They are stopped by a man marked as dangerous by his camouflage uniform, a machine gun, and aggressive facial expression. When presenting their UN identification cards, the man responds: “I don’t want to see that.” Written guidance instructs the viewer how to react in this situation.²⁴ Another cartoon tells the story of a dark-skinned UN officer and his local driver being taken hostage at a “refugee camp,” where they are threatened by a group of dark skinned, shabbily clothed men with knives.²⁵

Finally, the module “Where You Live and Work” focusses on personal interactions with local citizens and support staff. UN staff are told to watch out for seemingly ordinary-looking people who could be “Operatives disguised as demonstrator, food vendors, street sweepers, shoe shiners, etc.”²⁶ Another page shows the photo of a white woman talking into a mobile radio. An ethnic African man and child stand next to her and behind them two boys look curiously at the woman. In some distance are more people with African appearance. The caption reads “Hostile Crowd,” reinforcing the notion that ethnicity symbolizes danger since there are no other visual codes for risk.²⁷

Physical representations

Ranging from the outwardly appearance of UN facilities and vehicles to the ways that peacekeepers dress, are equipped, and act in public, MONUSCO’s everyday physical representations carry visual messages of security and risk to a diverse set of local audiences (Duffield, 2010; Higate & Henry, 2010). These audiences include not only MONUSCO’s military and civilian staff, but also the Congolese civilian population and local armed groups.

Several features characterize the everyday physical appearances of UN peacekeepers, compounds, equipment, and behavior since the adoption of security risk management. One aspect has been the redesign of military and civilian operations and bases in order to visually deter potential attacks. In addition, the environment of UN bases has been restructured into concentric circles with increasing levels of protectiveness (UN, 2017, p. 73). As Duffield (2010, p. 455) observes, UN missions have retreated into “visibly defensive and guarded structures.” This seclusion of the inner perimeter of UN bases behind “strengthened double gates and inner and outer walls or fences topped with razor-wire” can also be noted in the DRC (Duffield, 2010, p. 455).

Despite these common features, the visual presence of individual peacekeeping mission such as MONUSCO varies, depending on the size and functions of its bases and on the towns in which they are located. This part focuses Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu where rebel incursions are still a common problem and MONUSCO has its main military bases. In the border town of Goma, where MONUSCO’s operational headquarters outside the capital are placed, already the entrance to the town “is guarded with an eye towards maximum intimidation,” including UN compounds, military bases, tanks, and “heavy vehicles with swiveling gun turrets” (Rosen, 2013). Even MONUSCO’s civilian agencies in Goma are located in heavily fortified, walled UN bases in a district dominated by “terraced mansions rising behind barbed wire, with streets like intersecting box canyons of high walls and iron gates” (Rosen, 2013). In MONUSCO’s outer perimeter, the presence of local police checkpoints visually signals the defensiveness of the mission. High walls, often painted white and blue, and topped with razor wire characterize also MONUSCO’s local bases in Bunia and Beni.

In these regions, the visual appearance of MONUSCO’s peacekeepers underscores the impression of military strength to visually deter rebel attacks. The distinct martial and militarized exterior of MONUSCO’s soldiers becomes particularly evident when the peacekeepers exit their bases in protective vests and hard helmets, driving armored vehicles and carrying machine guns. UN patrols in local villages normally serve as visual symbols for the willingness of the peacekeeping forces to ensure public security (Higate & Henry, 2010, p. 43). However, their full body armor and weapons also visually distance the peacekeepers from the civilian population that they are sent to protect. In Iraq, British (ex-)soldiers thus chose to patrol the streets in light uniforms and soft caps to make themselves appear more approachable in comparison to their US-American counterparts who left the green-zone always armed to the teeth in an effort to gain security through intimidation (Higate, 2012, pp. 365–367).

Multiple messages, audiences, and potential insights

The preceding iconological analysis shows that MONUSCO’s promotional, educational and physical visual representations carry multiple overlapping messages of security and risk. This part examines what we may learn from these messages about MONUSCO’s approach to security risk management. It distinguishes between the UN’s construction of self and other identities with regard to security, the education of UN staff in how to identify potential vulnerabilities and how to detect, assess and behave in risky situations, and the UN’s strategies of visual deterrence and assurance. While a comprehensive analysis of MONUSCO is beyond the scope of this article, each section also identifies selected areas of research where these insights may enrich our understanding of MONUSCO’s real and perceived failure to protect the civilian population.

Constructing the self and other

MONUSCO’s press photos are particularly suited for analyzing what everyday visualities reveal about the (self-)understanding of the mission and its construction of the host population and the local environment because these images are downloadable for free and thus directed at a diffuse, unknown audience. Moreover, in contrast to UN outlets that combine images with text, such as MONUSCO’s French-language Brochure “Echos de la MONUSCO” or the UN’s own press notices, these images can only seek to speak for themselves. Three visual messages stand out in the context of security. The first message is that MONUSCO is foremost a military operation. Peacekeepers, weapons, armored vehicles, fortifications, and combat are the dominant theme, often shown with dark skies and sunsets as symbolic codes for war and encompassing danger. In this hostile environment, it is the UN peacekeeping mission that is at risk. The second message is that Congolese women and children are peaceful and need the UN’s protection. At the same time, however, women and children are rarely shown at the center of the images, implying that civilians are not the main concern of the mission. The third message highlights the potential danger emanating from Congolese men, who are almost exclusively depicted in the militarized forms of ex-combatants and FARDC soldiers. Local men seemingly do not exist as peaceful residents. Finally, there are very few photos of direct interactions between UN peacekeepers and the population. Their absence implies that the mandate to protect Congolese civilians is neither central to the self-image nor to the security conception of a mission that has been authorized to engage in combat operations.

In short, the preceding messages suggest a very particular (self-)understanding of MONUSCO and the mission’s relationship with its host environment. One way in which these insights may enhance the analysis of MONUSCO concerns the question how it has become possible that MONUSCO peacekeeping contingents have adopted a rather selective reading of their security mandate. UN resolutions 1925 and 2053 determine that the mission’s main priority should be the protection of civilians (UN Security Council, 2010, 2012). Yet, there have been widespread criticisms that MONUSCO appears to focus on military operations, while neglecting the immediate protection of local villagers in regions such as Ituri and the Kivus (Boutellis, 2013; Bureau d’Etudes, de Recherches et de Consulting International, 2015; Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network, 2019). Explanations range from the overstretch of MONUSCO’s peacekeeping forces to increased attacks on the civilian population (Berdal, 2018). However, interviews with UN security staff also confirm that peacekeeping contingents loath to be deployed “merely” for protective purposes.²⁸ This view appears to be shared by many governments that contribute peacekeepers (Oxfam, 2014, p. 12). There are several reasons for this attitude. Soldiers are primarily trained for combat and warfare, and not for civilian protection. To their minds, public security provision such as guarding villages and roads, but also protecting the UN’s civilian compounds is the function of the (military) police and private security guards. In addition, many peacekeepers and governments consider offensive military operations to be more prestigious.²⁹ MONUSCO’s press images suggest that this construction of MONUSCO as a fighting force and the relegation of civilian safety to second place is widely shared within the UN and thus deserves further investigation.

Risk identification, assessment, and behavior

Whereas MONUSCO’s press images help to elucidate the construction of the mission and its security mandate more broadly conceived, the UN’s online security training BSITF II contributes to a closer investigation of the conceptions of security and risk that underpin UN security risk management. In addition, the course offers new insights into how everyday visualities are implicated in training UN staff how to identify, assess, and avoid risks in the field. The course’s main visual message is that UN staff are at risk wherever they are. A second lesson is that UN staff are responsible for their own safety and must be able to visually identify and assess potential security risks. A third message is that staff should minimize their movements and contacts when travelling and working abroad. While these messages are also conveyed by the course’s written instructions, visual analysis reveals another aspect that may otherwise be missed: the course’s stereotypical racial, gendered, and colonial constructions of risk profiles and risky environments. Its cartoons and interactive pictures leave little doubt that it is the white, well-dressed and often female UN employee who is at risk. By contrast, local males with dark brown skin, black hair or beards, darkness, and host country environments marked by dirt roads, wooden huts, and ramshackle are sources of danger.

Since UN staff must repeat the security training at regular intervals it is plausible that these visual messages contribute to shaping the risk perceptions and behavior of UN employees. The lesson that UN staff face acute risks and need to distance themselves from host populations appears to be well learned despite its critics (Andersson & Weigand, 2015; Beerli, 2018; Duffield, 2010). As an international UN employee remarks in an interview: “We have to accept that we have to protect ourselves. More and more we have to accept that the UN flag doesn’t protect us anymore. In fact, it draws aggression rather than neutralizes it.”³⁰ Another one observes that the UN has become “absolutely risk averse.”³¹ Disregarding statistical evidence demonstrating that UN staff fatalities have not increased since the 1990s, this message is reinforced by UN publications and security practices (UN, 2008; Van der Lijn & Smit, 2015).

With regard to MONUSCO, two insights may be gained from these findings. For one, BSITF II’s visual messages may add to our understanding of how the increased distance between UN’s peacekeeping missions and local civilian populations is reproduced and legitimized (Andersson & Weigand, 2015; Duffield, 2010; Jennings, 2016). In the DRC, this distance has been a recurrent complaint among the Congolese population (Oxfam, 2014, p. 15; UN Security Council, 2016, p. 14). A man in Ituri notes, “We don’t really have any relationship with them [MONUSCO] because we don’t have any contact with them” (Oxfam, 2012, p. 18). In particular, it has slowed the mission’s response to hostile attacks on civilians (Hoffmann et al., 2018; Oxfam, 2014).

In addition, the training’s visual representations highlight the variety of mechanisms that may be behind the perpetuation of racial, gendered and colonial stereotypes in UN peacekeeping (Jennings, 2014; Olsson & Gizelis, 2014). In contrast to the UN’s official discourses and policies that emphasize gender mainstreaming and racial equality, it shows that the UN visually constructs host country populations as dangerous, underdeveloped and untrustworthy (UN General Assembly, 2000; UN Security Council, 2000). The messages may also enhance our understanding of the how the division of local populations into two risk categories–men who are a potential hazard, and women and children who bear little risk, but are also unimportant–is made possible. In MONUSCO, this thus been observed that “the ‘private,’ feminized sphere of the home—encompassing peacekeepers’ domestic and sexual arrangements—is marginalized, while the masculinized realm of security is prioritized and closely regulated” (Jennings, 2014, p. 314). Moreover, it shows how visuality may reinforce and legitimize gendered approaches and experiences of security in peacekeeping (Olsson & Gizelis, 2014).

Deterrence and assurance

Finally, the visual messages carried by MONUSCO’s physical appearance help to elucidate the mission’s approach to risk mitigation. The first two messages are that MONUSCO is both capable of and willing to fight, as illustrated by the peacekeepers’ distinctive militarized appearance and the fact that the soldiers move through the villages in tanks or armored and weaponized vehicles. The third message is that MONUSCO’s compounds and bases are heavily protected, but also secluded zones of safety from which the local population is systematically excluded.

Directed at a variety of local audiences such as peacekeepers, UN staff, armed groups, and the civilian population, these visual messages serve two security functions. On the one hand, they aim to deter violent attacks on the peacekeeping mission, its facilities, and Congolese civilians. On the other hand, they are designed to assure UN staff and the local population that MONUSCO is there to protect them. With regard to risk mitigation, it is specifically the tension between the two visual messages that may contribute to elucidating why many Congolese citizens in the eastern provinces believe that the mission is “useless” (Congo Research Group, 2016, pp. 33–34; Hatcher & Perry, 2012). In particular, the visual analysis helps to uncover the discrepancy between the promise of protection that is the visual message of MONUSCO’s strongly-armed peacekeeping forces and the continued insecurity of civilians in the eastern provinces (UN Security Council, 2020, pp. 4–5; Jennings, 2014, p. 326). Combined with their own exclusion from MONUSCO’s safe zones that are plainly in their sight, this message may help to understand why local populations are frustrated and angry (Oxfam, 2014). Moreover, MONUSCO’s bunkerized appearance contributes to elucidating why locals may reach the conclusion that MONUSCO is not willing to ensure their safety, and why the visible presence of MONUSCO facilities has repeatedly become the target of violent protests and attacks by locals because of MONUSCO’s perceived inaction (UN Security Council, 2020).

Conclusion

Everyday visual representations are an integral part of security governance. Yet, we know little about how they reflect, disseminate, and reproduce distinctive understandings and practices. This article has proposed a framework for analyzing different modes of visuality entailed in contemporary security risk management. Using the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO as an empirical illustration, the article has sought to demonstrate how visual analysis may complement the analysis of discourses and practices to expose understandings and messages of security and risk. It suggests that these messages may not only contribute to understanding MONUSCO’s construction of self- and other identities with regard to risk, but also help to elucidate how the UN visually educates staff to recognize, assess, and behave in risky situations, and how the UN visually mitigates (perceptions of) insecurity.

The resulting findings deepen our understanding of MONUSCO’s perceived and real failure to fulfil its priority mandate to protect the civilian population in four areas that invite further empirical research. First, visual analysis helps to reveal the incongruence between MONUSCO’s visual construction of its self-identity as a combat mission and an official mandate that emphasizes the complex, multidimensional nature of the operation, and the protection of civilians (MONUSCO, 2020a, 2020b). Second, it lays bare the gendered, racial, and colonial prejudices that underpin the UN’s construction of who is at risk and who is a risk. Third, it shows how everyday visual representations may contribute to the growing distance between peacekeeping missions and host populations by teaching UN staff to view local citizens with suspicion, and to minimize their exposure and contacts with host environments. Finally, visual analysis exposes how the militarized appearance of UN peacekeepers and bases may support the preceding messages of strength, but also holds a visual promise of protection for local civilians that has often remained unsatisfied.

For the UN and MONUSCO, the preceding findings suggest two policy implications. Foremost, it demonstrates the importance of looking critically at seemingly mundane visual representations of security and risk. All UN Departments should ask themselves what understandings its routine visualities may intentionally or unintentionally communicate, and whether these are indeed the messages that they want to convey. Second, UNDSS should develop a greater awareness of the fact that the outwardly appearance of peacekeeping operations does not only serve functional needs, nor does it only affect mission security. The visible exterior of UN civilian, humanitarian, and peacekeeping missions carries divergent messages for different audiences. A focus on visual deterrence should not detract from the fact that the outwardly appearance of peacekeeping missions also shapes its relationship with local populations, and that this relationship can be important factor for a mission’s security and success.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Xenia Seekircher for her research assistance. This article has also benefited greatly from the comments and suggestions of the editor and the two anonymous reviewers.

Image 1. UN Photo by Sylvain Liechti.

Image 2. UN Photo by Myriam Asmani.

Image 3. UN Photo by Michael Ali.

Image 4. UN Photo by Sylvain Liechti.

Image 5. UN Photo by Sylvain Liechti.

Image 6. UN Photo by Sylvain Liechti.

The online appendix and dataset are available from https://zenodo.org/record/4243941.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Elke Krahmann is Professor of International Relations at the University of Kiel, Germany. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and her international career has included academic positions in the USA, UK and Germany. Professor Krahmann publishes widely on international security, including articles in journals such as Security Dialogue, European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies International Affairs, European Security, and Millennium. Her book “States, Citizens, and the Privatization of Security” (Cambridge University Press, 2010) was awarded the Ernst-Otto-Czempiel Prize.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J021091/1].

Notes

1 The following analysis is based on 244 press photos taken between the start of MONUSCO on July 1, 2010 and December 31, 2018. The photos were obtained from http://www.unmultimedia.org/photo/ and selected by searching for the keyword “MONUSCO” in the category “UN around the world.” The photos cited in this article can be found by entering the photo identification number into the search function or by downloading the appendix from https://zenodo.org/record/4243941.

2 See Image 1 # 573454. Others include # 482671, # 482672, # 514193, # 514194.

3 See Image 2 # 482668.

4 E.g., # 514868, # 556886, # 556889, # 575579.

5 E.g., # 533058, # 556649, # 575571, # 575574.

6 E.g., # 565187, # 566732, # 566734, # 745980.

7 E.g., # 559315, # 660955, # 776920, # 756679.

8 E.g., # 543552, # 536802.

9 E.g., # 552388, # 533057.

10 E.g., # 556773, # 573450, # 573451, # 582838.

11 See Image 3 # 758064. Others include # 514194, # 573455, # 583096.

12 See Image 4 # 514653. Others include # 520975, # 573448, # 573446,

13 E.g., # 559756, # 559757, # 584398, # 586262.

14 See Image 5 # 579212, also # 571930 and # 575566.

15 # 571931, # 571932, # 575567.

16 This analysis concerns BSITF II as it was available at https://training.dss.un.org/ on March 2, 2014. In 2018–19, the course was replaced by a new version that can be accessed at the same website by personal enrollment.

17 UN, BSITF II, Module 3–On the Move: Anti-hijacking Guidelines.

18 UN, BSITF II, Module 3–On the Move: Driving.

19 UN, BSITF II, Module 4–Where You Live and Work: Anticipating a Threatening Individual.

20 UN, BSITF II, Module 3–On the Move: At the Hotel.

21 UN, BSITF II, Module 3–On the Move: At the Hotel.

22 UN, BSITF II, Module 3–On the Move: At the Hotel.

23 UN, BSITF II, Module 7–Your Personal Safety: Case Study—On the Road.

24 UN, BSITF II, Module 7–Your Personal Safety: Case Study—On the Road.

25 UN, BSITF II, Module 7–Your Personal Safety: Case Study—Hostage Taking.

26 UN, BSITF II, Module 7–Your Personal Safety: Watching the Watchers.

27 UN, BSITF II, Module 4–Where You Live and Work: Hostile Crowd.

28 Interview with UN Staff, New York, April 2, 2014. See also Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (2019), p. 62.

29 Ibid.

30 Interview with UN Staff, New York, April 2, 2014.

31 Interview with UN Staff, New York, April 3, 2014.