Photography is a versatile medium that is able to freeze a single moment in time as well as provide insight into the zeitgeist of a longer period. Therein lies part of the value of the medium of...Show morePhotography is a versatile medium that is able to freeze a single moment in time as well as provide insight into the zeitgeist of a longer period. Therein lies part of the value of the medium of photography, as well as a political application. This thesis explores this claim further and considers photography as a tool for resistance in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. This illustrates a larger point, namely that aesthetic theory adds to our understanding of international relations, especially regarding power relations and resistance. This premise is located in larger body of literature as part of Bleiker’s aesthetic turn in IR and Danchev’s concept of witnessing. From this flows an analysis of parrhesia, as the South African photographer speaks truth to power, as well as an examination of visual normativity, everyday resistance and memory. The conceptual framework is constructed on Sontag en Butler’s review on the medium of photography, and Rancière’s treatment of the relation between aesthetics and politics. Images from apartheid photographers such as David Goldblatt and Ernest Cole are analysed to shed light on these theoretical concepts and further demonstrate how power operated during apartheid, but also how norms are subverted and the white hegemony resisted. This thesis thus concludes that aesthetic theory in general and photography in particular is an important resource in the field of IR to foster a better understanding of power relations, conflict and resistance.Show less
The thesis looks at how the pre-famine conditions in the Yemen civil war are being portraied through photography in late 2018, early 2019 and, at its core, discusses the lack of systematic,...Show moreThe thesis looks at how the pre-famine conditions in the Yemen civil war are being portraied through photography in late 2018, early 2019 and, at its core, discusses the lack of systematic, institutionalised ethic regulations in humanitarian photography and its impact on the future of understanding humanitarian tragedies. It explores three different ways of photographic representation that all aim for charity as main purpose: case oriented, illustrative human rights photography (Doctors Without Borders), dehumanising and objectifying tendencies of mass media photography spectacles (New York Times) and the inbetween, using sequential narratives to generate context (United Nations Crisis Relief/UNOCHA). The following discussion explores the use of photography as visual spectacle rather than portraying human beings in a context that grounds them as human beings. This bases in the recent discourses of visual global politics (Bleiker, Hutchinson, Chouliaraki, Robinson, Pruce et al.). At last, it expands the discussion towards modern means of visual media (sequential photography, video, virtual reality, augmented reality, 4d)and explores the vast possibilities of integrating alternative media formats in humanitarian causes as well as its possible dangers that 'do-good' humanism can cause for humanitarian organisations in the long run.Show less
