Many a time, photographers reproduce coloniality, patriarchy, and orientalism while engaging with participants they are outsiders to. Various street photographers embody the patriarchal belief that the street belongs to them and that “anything on the street is fair game.” Have they stopped to consider their positionality in relation to what enabled them to impose their mobility on others with less mobility or privilege? Does consent not matter anymore? What about travellers who document societies unfamiliar to them, who then make assumptions about others’ realities and lived experiences?
A visual ethnography challenges the assumptions that photography is apolitical. It borrows ethical training and considerations of positionality from ethnographic training and methodologies. Photography and visual observation are world-writing apparatuses. It has the power to influence, share, solidify narratives, lie, protect, and impose. We, as photographers, must do our best to understand our positionality and honour our responsibility to document and decolonise the world.
The core truth of my visual ethnographic projects is reflexivity, immersion, and dignity: an ethics of care.
VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY