“Shared Photography”

Abstract

One of the most important civic phenomena emerging from favelas in Rio de Janeiro today is “community (photo)journalism”, which is practised by favela residents who are trained in journalistic and artistic techniques to raise critical awareness and promote political mobilisation in- and outside favelas. This paper looks at some of the work produced at one training place for community photographers, the agency-school Imagens do Povo (“Images of the People”) in Nova Holanda, a favela located in Rio’s North Zone. Using an ethnographic approach, this article first provides an account of the working practices of the School and its photographers. This is followed by a discussion of a small sample of their photographic work, for which we employ a social semiotic paradigm of image analysis. This methodological synergy provides insights into how these journalists document long-term structural as well as “spectacular” violence in favelas, while at the same time striving to capture some of the “beauty” of these communities. The paper concludes that this form of photographic work constitutes an important step towards a more analytical brand of journalism with different news values that encourage a more context-sensitive approach to covering urban violence and favela life.

KEYWORDS:

•  alternative media
• Imagens do Povo
• multimodality
• news values
• photojournalism

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to express our gratitude to João Roberto Ripper and all the photographers from Imagens do Povo who generously offered their time to be interviewed. We are particularly indebted to Naldinho Lourenço, Luiz Baltar and Ratão Diniz, who also kindly allowed us to use some of their images for the analysis in this article. In addition, Andrea Mayr would like to thank Washington Teixeira for all his help and support throughout the project.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Biazoto’s study of Rio’s mainstream media, for example, has pointed to its lack of reflectivity and critical thinking, where roots of poverty and violence are all but ignored.

2. The police occupation of Maré was initiated on 21 March 2015. In the week leading up to the official occupation, various abuses and several deaths were reported, including that of an 18-year-old taken to an alley and killed by the Special Operations Battalion BOPE on 27 March. Local non-governmental organisation Redes de Desenvolvimento da Maré (Maré Development Networks) published a report on 28 March outlining the violations, including reports of police officers beating and locking up a group of boys in a room, threatening to blow it up, and BOPE invading houses to sleep and take a shower (see http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=14260).

3. For example, in 2008, the Escola de Fotógrafos Populares won the Faz Diferença (“Make a Difference”) Award, organised by Rio’s biggest newspaper O Globo, after carrying out an extensive photographic essay about fun and enjoyment in the favelas of Rio, which resulted in the material A favela se diverte (“The favela has fun”), that was published on the front cover of O Globo’s Sunday magazine.

4. The march was also filmed and posted on YouTube by the local newspaper Nova Democracia (“New Democracy”) (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw4PpP5hhAQ).

5. Since 2007, Diniz has documented the backlands of Brazil with his project Revelando os Brasis (“Unfolding Brasis”, available at http://www.revelandoosbrasis.com.br) by the Ministry of Culture. In this initiative he explored and documented individuals and groups who are cut off from social and economic development.

6. The fieldwork for this article was carried out at Imagens do Povo in Maré by both authors and in other favelas by Alice Baroni.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), under the National Post-doctoral Programme.