The Visual Grammar of a Catastrophe

Changing Representations of the Odra River Floods (1997–2024)

Peer-reviewed article, Submitted 12.07.2025, Accepted 4.11.2025

Marcin Brocki

marcin.brocki@uj.edu.pl
Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3703-9761

Abstract

An attempt at an anthropological and semiotic reconstruction of the visual representations of two Odra River floods: the “Great Flood” of 1997 and the events of 2024, regarded as socially rooted systems of meaning constituted under changing media and technological regimes. Press photographs, satellite images, social media contents, and institutional communications were analysed as semiotic practices embedded in politics and society rather than as documents. The difference of the visual representation of the floods – from humanitarian disaster to controlled risk – reveals a change of the dominating regimes of representation: from a mobilizing, emotional-symbolic depiction of suffering and collective effort to technocratic forms of data visualization dominated by indexical strategies. In this article the author attempts to demonstrate how representations of floods can shape and justify particular configurations of man–environment relations and the environment, establishing a framework for emotional, epistemic, and ethical responses to ecological threats.

Supporting Agencies

Funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, under the CHANSE programme, grant no. UMO-2021/03/Y/HS3/00276.


Keywords:

visual anthropology, flood, new media, visual semiotics, anthropology of disasters

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Published
2026-02-03

Cited by

Brocki, M. (2026) “The Visual Grammar of a Catastrophe: Changing Representations of the Odra River Floods (1997–2024)”, Konteksty, 351(4), pp. 38–45. doi: 10.36744/k.4540.

Authors

Marcin Brocki 
marcin.brocki@uj.edu.pl
Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3703-9761

Marcin Brocki – antropolog kultury. Profesor w Instytucie Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej UJ, były dyrektor tego Instytutu. Zajmuje się problematyką historii, teorii i metodologii antropologii kulturowej, problemami gwałtownych zmian w społecznościach lokalnych oraz problemami współczesnej, cyfrowej estetyzacji natury.



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