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
