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Abstract
Taking advantage of developments in digital technology and the transmission of information, citizens’ photography has become a common way that ordinary people, rather than exclusively professionals, now produce knowledge. It also represents the promise of a democratisation of information-making and distribution. After defining citizens’ photography, this article offers a comparative analysis of its performance in the spheres of media/journalism, the social sciences, and human rights organisations, and shows its role in each field and its intricate relationship with experts in those fields. The analysis in these fields is concerned with the historical formation of such photography, the source of citizens’ photography’s strength or fragility, and its conditions. While most scholars have considered this practice in a single, isolated field of knowledge, this article seeks to understand its centrality to a civil politics of visual participation via a comparative approach. The article concludes with a detailed description of one of the first citizens’ photography projects in Palestine: ‘Palestinian Diaries’ (1990), which is unknown to local residents because it was broadcast only in Europe.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 2013 is the year that the movement Black Lives Matter was established. The deaths of Blacks at the hands of law enforcement, of course, occurred before 2013.
2 2007 is the year that the Camera Project of B'Tselem was initiated. Although it is not the first documenting project where non-professional Palestinian photographers have filmed and photographed, it is a prominent project, and its success has encouraged other organizations to mount programmes of camera distribution to Palestinian residents in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
3 Foucault is writing not on knowledge but rather on discourse. Yet knowledge is always produced as part of a discourse (Foucault Citation1972).
5 The catalog of the exhibition: 'Territoires occupées: des adolescents à l'oeuvre' (United Nations relief and Work Agency - Jérusalem Centre Régional de la Photographie Noed Pas-de-Cal alis, 1992).
8 As what is found regarding the visual reports from the civil war that began in 2011 in Syria.
9 Another common way of engaging in visual participatory research is through the drawings made by those taking part in the research. See for example: Cross, Kabel, and Lysack (Citation2006).
10 "The space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action" (Arendt Citation1958, 199).
11 ‘First on CNN: Videos show glimpse into evidence for Syria intervention’:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/07/politics/us-syria-chemical-attack-videos/
13 This information is from the head of the video department at B'Tselem (conversation with author, 28 August 2015).
14 Yoav Gross, the former head of the video department at B'Tselem, told me this information in a conversation on 28 December 2015.
15 For instance, Kony's viral campaign: Kony 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc. See also (Gregory Citation2012).
16 The talk with advocator Michael Sfard was held on 1 November 2013.
17 The talk with Oren Yakibovich was held on 7 May 2008. On the Camera Project of B'Tselem as a civil panopticon, see: Miretski and Bachmann Citation2014.
18 Many books have been written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its visual documentation, for example Gil Hochberg’s Visual Occupations (Citation2015) and Daniel Dor’s The Suppression of Guilt (Citation2005).
19 This information is not accurate: Ismael continued to create and exhibit her artwork, for example in the Hagar Gallery in Jaffa (http://www.hagar-gallery.com/). I tried to meet Ismael but she refused.
20 The talk with Ilan Ziv was on 20 April 2016.
21 After the 1973 war in Israel Ziv moved to New York City and learned cinema at NYU. After finishing his studies he worked with Faye Ginsburg, one of the first to work and write on Indigenous media (Ginsburg Citation1991).
22 The talk with Kuttab took place on 28 March 2016.
23 Kuttab way of perceiving the media is also expressed about Palestinian film (Alexander Citation1998).
24 This observation is influenced by Foucault’s description of anti-authority struggles. He asks us to understand what power relation are about and, therefore, forms of resistance and attempts of dissociate are examined. As he writes: ‘struggles revolve around the question: Who are we? They are a refusal of these abstraction, of economic and ideological state violence, which ignore who we are individually … ’. The struggle defines who we are, just as citizens' photography, as a form of civil negotiation, defines which citizens we are (Foucault Citation1982, 781).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ruthie Ginsburg
Dr. Ruthie Ginsburg is a lecturer in visual culture at Beit Berl College. Her research focuses on the use of photography by activists. While her previous research was on human rights organizations, her current work examines the role of photography in demonstrations.