Race-conscious transnational activists with cameras: Mediators of compassion

This article examines a Canadian transnational solidarity activist's efforts to publicize human suffering through visual documentation. The objectives are to examine some of the ways activists negotiate ethical dilemmas about spectatorship and a white/Western gaze, and to consider the potential...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of cultural studies 2008-03, Vol.11 (1), p.87-105
Main Author: Mahrouse, Gada
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Canada
Documentation
Dominance
Ethics
Ethics and moral life
Globalization
Photography
Race
Sociology
Sociology of communication and mass media. Sociolinguistics
Sociology of knowledge and ethics
Sociology of knowledge and sociology of culture
Solidarity
Subordination
Transnationalism
Violence
Visual arts
War
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Summary:This article examines a Canadian transnational solidarity activist's efforts to publicize human suffering through visual documentation. The objectives are to examine some of the ways activists negotiate ethical dilemmas about spectatorship and a white/Western gaze, and to consider the potential of the uses of visual documentation as a tool/tactic for subverting global white hegemony. The analysis focuses an one activists' attempts to capture and narrate experiences of suffering in the light of racialized relations of domination and subordination. The article argues that the strategies used to document and display photographs constituted the photographer and the viewers' understandings of themselves in ways that reinforce rather than subvert power. The article concludes by considering the implications of white/Westerners as mediators of the Other's suffering.
ISSN:1367-8779
1460-356X
DOI:10.1177/1367877907083082