Event overview
with Sébastien Bachelet and Laura Jeffery, University of Edinburgh. Part of 'Curating Development' - Autumn Term Seminar Series 2017
Photographs of migrants have become ubiquitous. Newspapers and TV news regularly depict families on crowded and flimsy boats crossing the Mediterranean. Critics such as Susan Sontag have been concerned with the extent to which such proliferation of images retains the power to convey something tangible about the pain and the hopes of those on the move to people watching from the comfort of their own homes. Interpretation has been at the forefront of methodological inquiry such as photo elicitation. However, there has been relatively scant focus on the production of images, including in accounts of participatory techniques such as photovoice. What happens when migrants take pictures (of) themselves? In this paper we draw on a photography workshop with sub-Saharan migrants and Moroccans in Rabat, organised in partnership with artists and local NGOs supporting migrants and refugees in Morocco. Through learning and practising photography, members of displaced and host communities encountered one another other through a viewfinder and as collaborators in a creative endeavour. How might such photographic encounters enhance engagement with migration issues?
About the speaker
Sébastien Bachelet is a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. His PhD on irregular, sub-Saharan migration to Morocco examined how migrants, faced with precarious living conditions, made sense of their uncertain lives, curtailed mobility and processes of illegalization. Laura Jeffery is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research explores creative engagement for mobilisation in contexts of forced displacement. In collaboration with Mariangela Palladino (a Lecturer in English at the University of Keele), their GCRF project “Arts for Advocacy” seeks to develop innovative, interdisciplinary, and participatory arts-based methods to facilitate critical engagement and advocacy relating to forced displacement in Morocco (see: http://artsforadvocacy.org).
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Nov 2017 | 3:00pm - 5:00pm |
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