Excavating the Gendered Self: Digital Affordance and Photo-Auto|Biography

ABSTRACT

Based on a study of ordinary Chinese women's photo-auto|biographic practices, this article examines the excavating of a gendered self through the creation of digital photo archives, the curating, repurposing, and organization of these photos into photo-auto|biographies, and the fashioning of new genres in these women's photo-auto|biographic practices.

Acknowledgments

The fieldwork for this research was supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and the writing of this article was supported by a fellowship from the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am grateful for the generous support from the participants in this research project, and to Ma and Li, who gave me permission to use their photos in this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I follow Wells, Lury, Dijck, and others in using the term “personal photography” instead of “amateur photography” or “family photography.” As Dijck points out, the word “personal” is used to distinguish it from professional photography while avoiding the troubling connotation of “amateurish” in relation to camera use (Mediated). On the other hand, “family photography” mistakenly presupposes a familial context, since photography has always been, and is increasingly being, used for personal identity formation.

2. I use a slash between auto and biography because the “auto|biographies” produced in this project are coedited not only by the participants and myself, but also often with the combined efforts of other women, such as a daughter, daughter-in-law, girlfriend, or employer. Furthermore, in the context of photo-auto|biographic practice, most photos are products of collaboration too—other people have participated in taking, composing, editing, or even Photoshopping them.

3. Retouching and manipulation have always been inherent in the dynamics of photography.

4. Dijck (Mediated) points out that digitization is not dematerialization. Layers of codes are definitely material, even if this materiality is different from other analog objects.

5. Prior to 2016, the government policy regarding the retirement age for female “physical laborers” (as opposed to office and management workers) was fifty in Chinese cities.

6. QH Yang is a sixty-year-old care worker from a rural area.

7. GZ Yang, who was born in 1948, had been a peasant and a worker, and was also the president of a local food service company before retirement.

8. In China, Cadre is a personnel category that refers to the political and administrative elites who are in management and leadership positions.

9. For the weeping wedding-song tradition in China, see McLaren (2–3) and McLaren and Qinjian.

10. Li was born in 1952. She worked as a machinist in a state-owned factory for thirty-three years before being laid off in 2002.

11. S. Q. Huang was born in 1923 in a farmer's family. She had various jobs, including small business, construction, and a caregiver. She passed away in 2014.

12. QQ has around 800 million active users in 2014.