Proposals for large-scale technical interventions into the Earth system to mitigate global warming – or climate engineering – have sparked considerable debate about their potential implications for international security and global governance. The article furthers this debate by bringing it into dialogue with the literature on visual global politics to develop a more ‘imagistic’ concept of climate engineering imaginaries. Based on a novel visual dataset, three major visual clusters in the public discourse on climate engineering are identified: images of the human–nature relationship, of climate engineering as tangible infrastructure, and of the actors involved in climate engineering projects. The analysis shows how images and other visuals do not only shape the dominant understanding of climate engineering but also competing imaginaries of future political orders in which such approaches might be deployed. Three main results of this analysis stand out. First, dominant ways of seeing climate engineering can further reinforce already dominant discursive frames by adding ‘visual proof’ to their underlying claims. Second, climate engineering visuality can also enable the politicisation of climate engineering by rendering concrete projects visible and hence contestable. Third, climate engineering images can paradoxically limit the scope of imagination as they often revolve around powerful visual icons and symbols of the past and present.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has once again brought borders to the center of attention, as journalists, authorities, and scholars have grappled with the pandemic. The coronavirus outbreak, which began in late 2019 and early 2020 has caused tremendous personal, economic, and social upheaval. As many states decided to pursue the national interests and to close their borders to prevent the spread of the virus, this decision had major consequences for residents in border regions, for whom border crossing is an everyday practice. The article aims at exploring the discourse on the rebordering experience as constructed by local authorities and residents of two twin towns, one on the Polish-Czech (Cieszyn-Český Těšín) and one on the Polish-German (Słubice-Frankfurt/Oder) border. By applying a Discursive Historical Approach, we identified four main discursive strands which deployed diverse imaginaries.