Photography and the Transnational Politics of Affect

Photographs bear tremendous emotional and affective power thanks to their intimate and necessary relationship to the material world, their 'having-been-there' quality. Disseminated across an evolving range of media and spanning geographical distances, historical periods, and cultural and linguistic divides, photographs are routinely presented for everyday consumption, calling on us to recognise our fellow human beings in moments of crisis and duress: from the all-too familiar images documenting successive waves of famine and disease, through those that bear witness to the action and destruction of war or 'natural' disasters and their aftermath, to the photo ops staged in the arena of struggles for human rights. As they circulate in the global public sphere, such photographs invite patterns of identification, mobilizing shame, inciting outrage, hatred, fear, compassion, etc. The very fact that they continue to circulate testifies to the on-going belief in their power to communicate affect transnationally and ultimately to effect change.

However, despite the enduring historical relationship between photography and the affective, photography scholarship has yet to examine the emotional aspects of the medium's persuasive power. Our network therefore aims to address two overarching questions. First, how has photography emerged as one of the key modes in the representation of political events, and consequently framed what is visible and hence, sayable? Second, how do photographs serve as vehicles for the transnational communication of affect, and therefore aid (or hinder) the formation of (political) communities based around these emotional attachments? The research speaks directly to the relationship between visuality and politics, and is relevant to research and photographic practice that seeks to engage with the work that photographs do in relation to social change, human rights, and the public sphere. Conceived as an international and interdisciplinary project, the network has been designed to straddle the boundary between the academic community and other stakeholders, including photographers, curators, journalists, human rights activists and representatives of NGOs.

Beneficiaries of this research:

A major objective of the network is to provide a platform for collaboration between researchers in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and key stakeholders -- including photographers, curators, human rights activists and representatives of NGOs. The subject of the network is also of potential interest to members of the wider public who, after all, encounter on a daily basis the kinds of photographic images that are its focus in the form of illustrations in newspapers and magazines, leaflets seeking donation to charitable causes etc.

Non-academic beneficiaries will benefit from this research in the following ways:

A key premise of the network is knowledge exchange, whereby the encounter between academics and non-academics transforms knowledge and practice for both parties. Just as academics will benefit from the insights, knowledge and understanding offered by stakeholders who produce and cause photographic images to circulate in the global public sphere, stakeholders will equally benefit from the kinds of theoretical and methodological insights that academics bring to bear on the analysis of the photographic image in this context. A clearer understanding of the potential benefits of participating in the network can best be achieved through examples:

(a) In the case of a representative of an NGO, an enhanced understanding of the emotional aspects of the medium's persuasive power and the culturally specific contours of a photograph's transnational circuits of dissemination has the potential to enable more effective awareness-raising campaigns.

(b) In the case of a museum/gallery curator, dialogue and exchange with the international and interdisciplinary participants in the network have the potential to spark new and innovative ideas for exhibitions and programmes on themes related to the network's key questions and concerns.

In addition, organizations, groups and individual photographers will benefit from increased publicity afforded their work through participation in the network.

Each of the activities of the network not only bring together academics and stakeholders, but will also include events - such as Q&A sessions with photographers - that will be widely advertised and open to members of the wider public. In this way, the network aims to encourage reflection on, and to enhance broader public understanding of the work that photographs do within the global public sphere.

Timescales:
There will be immediate benefits that can be identified during the life of the network, as signalled above. However, one of the principal aims of the network is to trigger exchanges, collaborations which will outlive the network - for example, larger scale collaborative projects, some of which can be anticipated at this stage, others will emerge as the activities get under way. Examples include a knowledge exchange partnership with an NGO; further work with cultural institutions on the role of images in the public sphere, e.g. Impressions Gallery, International Photography Center, Autograph-ABP.

Research and professional skills
The project incorporates a postgraduate research assistant who will be managed by the PI. S/he will acquire a range of research and professional skills, such as networking with a scholars based in a wide-range of international institutions; public engagement skills; presentation of work at international research fora; knowledge exchange activity with non-academic partners; editorial skills. Professional skills will include the administrative tasks related to the running the network; communication skills; organization skills; IT skills.