Distanced suffering: photographed suffering and the construction of white in/vulnerability

Abstract

There has been much debate about the ethics and effectiveness of the circulation of photographs of suffering. An analysis of commentaries and reviews of such photographs shows that the genre interpellates a particular spectator, for whom the “distance” of suffering is viewed from a comfortable centre. This mode of spectatorship is identifiable as “white” in its claim to unmarked privilege. The photographs threaten to destabilise this unmarked privilege in potentially productive ways, but the reproduction of colonial viewing relations means that whiteness remains centred. The paper concludes by attempting to destabilise the centre by bringing the discussion of the relation between suffering and sovereignty closer to “home”.

Keywords:

• documentary photography
• whiteness
• spectatorship
• suffering
• vulnerability

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Nadine Ehlers and an anonymous referee for their very valuable input into an earlier draft of this essay, and also audience members at the 2007 Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Conference for their feedback on a related conference paper.