The ruins of Managua vieja: the use of expressive photography in urban ethnography

Abstract

This article proposes a method of conducting urban visual work – a practice-led visual study in which researcher-generated expressive photography explores the ‘city-as-archive’ (Hetherington 2013) and contributes to the urban visual archive. The photographs used in this article focus upon the social world of material remnants in the setting of the old downtown of Managua, Nicaragua. The aim of the article is four-fold: to suggest the epistemological gains of expressive photography, to discuss the methodology and style, to present the use of these images in an urban visual ethnography of Managua and to address related ethical concerns. Although expressive photographs are used to some extent by scholars, there is a noticeable lack of discussion of the method and empirical examples in urban visual studies. In this article, I propose intentionally using expressive photography to convey the subjective and affective knowledge that is generally not communicated by more conventional, ‘realist’ documentary visual techniques. Moving into a more explicit conversation of the work process, I point out three arenas for inquiry, for which this method can be useful. I detail my own visual ethnographic practice, and present my primary visual aims in three image clusters: expressive photography in conjunction with historical images, theorising the oscillation between absence and presence and visually interpreting the vernacular design of the ruinscape. The article concludes with a consideration of ‘ruin romance’ as an ethical concern, as well as some reflections over perceived difficulties in using this method as a means of doing academic research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Different parts of this project were presented at the annual meetings of the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) in Cumbria, UK, 2009, and Brooklyn, US, 2012. A selection of my images from Managua vieja was chosen for exhibition at the latter. I am grateful to the participants at both paper presentations for interesting discussions, and also to the two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. In addition, many thanks to Morgan Gist MacDonald for her clever insights and suggestions throughout the writing of this article.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] Expressive photography is also frequently, in an overlapping but not exhaustive manner, called evocative, creative, artistic, poetic and impressionistic photography. See, for instance, Rose for the use of ‘photographs as evocation’ (2008, 155) and ‘images are more-than-representational’ (2014, 8), Yi’En for ‘photographs-as-affective materials’ (2014, 214), and Latham and McCormack for ‘affective archives’ (Latham and McCormack 2009, 257).

[2] See Inzulza Contardo and López Irías (2014) on the gradual reconstruction and nascent gentrification of Managua vieja.

[3] The choice of equipment size and visibility was surely also made out of security considerations. I could have worked with other types of equipment, had I spent more time at specific houses or ruins, but I was hesitant about being known as someone that would return multiple times with expensive and robbery-worthy equipment. In Managua vieja, like in many downtowns in Latin America and urban areas around the world, outsiders in particular can become targets for robbery and other crimes, which certainly affected my photographic practices. On the other hand, it inspired this more free-flowing manner of photographing with lighter equipment, which of course is in line with the way I experienced daily life in Managua vieja. Many parts of the downtown area are not very walkable. I soon started riding around with a local taxi driver, who I had already hired on many occasions and whose company and urban know-how often made my presence in the field possible. In practice, he functioned as both my urban adviser and ‘bodyguard’, as well as providing me with some kind of authenticity on the streets. The fact that we obviously knew each other well and spoke Spanish together seemingly made me into something more than just a curious tourist out sight-seeing, and thus facilitated my access to the field, and enabled me to move around less obtrusively.

[4] Alan Sekula discusses the difference between image series (random order) and image sequence (fixed order) as photographic practice, as discussed in Lockemann (2013, 84–85, with reference to Sekula 1998).

[5] Out of ethical concerns, when visiting ruins that were still inhabited, I was always very careful to wait until I was invited inside and to ask for permission before starting to take pictures. In Managua, one encounters much poverty on the streets and in the ruins. In my experience, when working in an impoverished area, it is easy to become gradually accustomed to the circumstances, to have the conditions become somewhat normalised and to find yourself adapted to the inequality, which raises important ethical questions about the research, and how the integrity of the people in the area can be protected. One way for me is to not publish images with persons that can be recognised, since restricting personal visual data when researching with vulnerable groups minimises the risk of personal exploitation (Joanou 2009). Further, it is also an attempt to follow anthropologist Florence E. Babb when she advocates ‘an approach that goes beyond the study of often-alienated or exotic subgroups of urban populations to embrace the city itself as a fundamental subject for research’ (Babb 2001, 49, italics mine).

[6] For examples of vernacular ‘visual identity’ in Nicaragua, see Hufschmid and Garay Barayazarra (2007).

[7] See also Cochrane and Russell on ‘Visualizing archaeological art’ (2007, 5).

[8] I do not employ any extensive digital manipulations to my images, such as adding components, layers or textures. The sometimes graphic and abstract notions of the images are achieved through composition, exposure and contrast, in camera and through editing, emphasising lines, shadows and colours.

[9] For an inspiring example of this method in artistic work, see how painter Barbro Östlihn brought the patterns and colours found on walls and everyday urban objects during the intense urban renewal of Manhattan in the early 1960s into her own art work (Öhrner 2003, 2010).

[10] Reports now also indicate that more buildings and monuments have been taken down in the wake of the earthquakes in mid-April of 2014, when Managua was hit with a series of severe, but relatively small in magnitude, earthquakes leaving no known human casualties. A heated national discussion seems to have broken out as to whether this destruction of buildings was necessary from a security point of view, which has been the official argument, or whether it was politically motivated, as these material remnants were perhaps seen as traces of a past that was not wished to be formally remembered, paid homage to or even valued in Managua. The possibility of restoration of, for instance, some of the modernist ruins, has been discussed by urban historians and architectural students, but the consensus seems to be that the contemporary modernist ruins of Managua tend to really not be appraised for their historical or architectural value. See, for instance, BBC’s report at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27020200 and articles from local newspapers, El Nuevo Diario and La Prensa (April 2014), for more information on the 2014 earthquakes. See also Rivera and Obando’s blog, ‘Tecnología y Evolución Arquitectónica’ on the modernist ruins, at http://ginarlen.blogspot.se/.

[11] See Steinmetz (2008) on ‘white ruingazers’ in Namibia; see also ethical discussion in Hamilakis, Anagnostopoulos, and Ifantidis (2009).

[12] See, e.g., Leonard Koren’s (2015, [1994] 2008) two books on the Japanese subject of Wabi-Sabi as ‘a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete; a beauty of things modest and humble, a beauty of things unconventional’ (2015, 7).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific external grant from any funding agency.

Notes on contributors

Ann Kroon

Ann Kroon is a visual researcher based in Stockholm and Bogotá. She holds a PhD in sociology and works as a lecturer at the University of Gävle, as well as with her own visual practice under the name of Kroons Kollektion. She focuses academically and artistically on urban visual work, using her own and historical images in different sociohistorical contexts. Ann’s recent articles are published in LIR Journal (2015) and Photography & Culture (2016).