Group items tagged

interesting site for possible research project ideas.

Interesting perspective on 'the other' by Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam (Drik)

Short piece which takes in colonial photography right up to present day NGO photography. Its bibliography might be useful http://www.ucd.ie/photoconflict/bibliography/

Excellent bibliography!

very helpful bibliography!

although not immediately connected, this is really interesting and I read it wondering whether the theory of the 'reverse gaze' as defined in the article could equally apply to pro photographers who photograph 'the other'

source of references

i have the pdf of the article if needed

I have the pdf of the book if needed

"In Biafra in 1968, a generation of children was starving to death. This was a year after oil-rich Biafra had seceded from Nigeria, and, in return, Nigeria had attacked and laid siege to Biafra. Foreign correspondents in the blockaded enclave spotted the first signs of famine that spring, and by early summer there were reports that thousands of the youngest Biafrans were dying each day. Hardly anybody in the rest of the world paid attention until a reporter from the Sun, the London tabloid, visited Biafra with a photographer and encountered the wasting children: eerie, withered little wraiths. The paper ran the pictures alongside harrowing reportage for days on end. Soon, the story got picked up by newspapers all over the world. More photographers made their way to Biafra, and television crews, too. The civil war in Nigeria was the first African war to be televised. Suddenly, Biafra's hunger was one of the defining stories of the age-the graphic suffering of innocents made an inescapable appeal to conscience-and the humanitarian-aid business as we know it today came into being. "

"humanitarian agencies are almost never held to account for doing wrong, even as they do not hesitate to take credit when they do good. What's more, I wrote, the humanitarian claim of political neutrality is a fiction: humanitarian action always has a political consequence, and one cannot deny responsibility for it. My focus was on humanitarian responses to armed conflict (rather than, say, natural disasters, or peace-time economic development) and on how, time and again, aid serves to cater conflicts, or to transform a crisis into the status quo. "

"Nick Kristof has one answer: Focus on the individuals in the story, leaving the aid bureaucracies just outside the frame. Make readers care about places and people they will probably never see by bringing them stories of hope and inspiration: the American woman who leaves behind her family to help rape survivors in the Congo; the orphan boy in Zimbabwe who dreams of and gets a bicycle."

Short blog post about 'the other' in contemporary European society

great 5 min interview with Bangladeshi photographer Saiful Huq Omi, who participated in the 2010 WPP Joop Swart Masterclass. He talks a lot about the way 'white western photographers' represent Bangladesh

highly recommended - TED talk by young female Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, in which she talks about the danger of stereotypes

The thinking man's photojournalist - Asif Rafiqui - on reprentations of Pakistan, although this could be applied to any majority world country

Interview with and gallery featuring images by Mongolian photographer A Yin, in NY Times Lens blog 20/12/10

"January 12 marked the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti last year, killing more than 230,000 people and leaving several million inhabitants of the small island nation homeless. Though natural disasters are common, the humanitarian response this time was different: New media and communications technologies were used in unprecedented ways to aid the recovery effort. A report recently released by Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities, with support from Internews and funding from the Knight Foundation, takes a critical look at the role of communications in the crisis and recommends ways to improve the effectiveness of utilizing media in future disaster relief efforts. (The Knight Foundation is a major funder for MediaShift and its sister site MediaShift Idea Lab.)"

"Photos: Haiti One Year Later * Next * Back * 1 of 13 Haiti One Year Later Shaul Schwarz / Reportage by Getty Images for TIME * Next * Back Port-au-Prince Today A woman stands outside of her house in the Fort National neighborhood, an area hit hard by the quake. One year after the devastating 2010 earthquake, the city remains littered with rubble. * Haiti's Earthquake Destruction: TIME Exclusive Photographs "