Visual Thinking in International Relations: Interactive Digital Maps, Spatial Conflict Dynamics, and Diverse Narratives

Journal article

Armed conflicts are spatially dynamic, with violence shifting across borders and scales in ways that static, text-based analyses struggle to capture. This article proposes interactive digital maps (IDMs) as epistemological tools that integrate visual thinking into all stages of research on conflict dynamics. IDMs leverage human pattern recognition to reveal relationships, simultaneities, and transformations that remain obscured in linear narratives. Used iteratively, they facilitate participatory and collaborative inquiry by enabling diverse actors to co-produce and interpret spatial data. Drawing on cases from Colombia, the Horn of Africa, Lake Chad, Myanmar, and Syria/Iraq, we show how IDMs generate new insights into conflict processes while exposing the power embedded in cartographic and digital representations. We argue that IDMs, when used reflexively, can democratize and decolonize knowledge production by foregrounding positionality, multiple perspectives, and visual-spatial reasoning. In doing so, they extend the visual turn in international relations and demonstrate how interactivity reshapes epistemological hierarchies rather than merely digitizing existing analytical practices.

Authors: Idler, A; Samper, J; Tkacova, K

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: International Studies Perspectives
• Article number: ekag004
• Publication date: 2026-06-13
• DOI: 10.1093/isp/ekag004
• EISSN: 1528-3577
• ISSN: 1528-3585
• Language: English
• Keywords: conflicto; production de connaissances; spatial conflict dynamics; producción de conocimiento; conflit; análisis espacial; descolonización; decolonizing methodologies; epistemology; knowledge production; relaciones internacionales visuales; visual international relations; cross-border armed conflict; visual thinking; práctica; décolonisation; analyse spatiale; pratique; interactive digital maps; relations internationales visuelles