For well over a century, humanitarians and their organizations have used photographic imagery and the latest media technologies to raise public awareness and funds to alleviate human suffering. This volume examines the historical evolution of what we today call “humanitarian photography” – the mobilization of photography in the service of humanitarian initiatives across state boundaries – and asks how we can account for the shift from the fitful and debated use of photography for humanitarian purposes in the late nineteenth century to our current situation in which photographers market themselves as “humanitarian photographers.” This book is the first to investigate how humanitarian photography emerged and how it operated in diverse political, institutional, and social contexts, bringing together more than a dozen scholars working on the history of humanitarianism, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations, and visual culture in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Based on original archival research and informed by current historical and theoretical approaches, the chapters explore the history of the mobilization of images and emotions in the globalization of humanitarian agendas up to the present.
Author(s): Heide Fehrenbach (editor), Davide Rodogno (editor)
Series: Human Rights in History
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 366
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction The Morality of Sight: Humanitarian Photography in History
Notes
1 Picturing Pain
Pioneers in Pictorial Journalism: Evangelicals and the Role of Images in Humanitarianism
The Camera Cannot Lie? The Integrity of Images in a Sensationalist Age
Competing Visions of Humanitarianism in an Imperial Era
Conclusion: The Lure and Legacy of Pictorial Humanitarianism
Notes
2 Framing Atrocity
The Language of Atrocity and Humanitarian Sentiment
“Their Bones Speak”: The Indian Famine, 1876–1878
The Congo Reform Association, 1903–1913
Notes
3 The Limits of Exposure
Notes
4 Photography, Visual Culture, and the Armenian Genocide
1
2
3
4
Conclusion
Notes
5 Developing the Humanitarian Image in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century China
Introduction
The Chinese Context
Helping Others, Chinese Style
Founding of the Chinese Red Cross
The Institutionalization of the Chinese Red Cross Society
Imagery in Red Cross Publications
A Call to Arms: Imagery and Action in Red Cross Photography
Chinese Red Cross Images Abroad
Conclusion
Notes
6 Photography, Cinema, and the Quest for Influence
Introduction
“Making War More Human”
The Propaganda Commission
The Technology
The Iconography of the ICRC
The ICRC on Stage
Between War Victims and Beneficiaries of Humanitarian Assistance
Conclusion
Notes
7 Children and Other Civilians
Children in Social Context
Mere Children: Save the Children Fund
Feed the Children, Save the Revolution
Wartime Disorder, Displacement, Destruction: Children as Civilians
Notes
8 Sights of Benevolence
Introduction
Photographers of Relief
“Public Relation Stories”
Rehabilitating Children
UNRRA’s Angle
Victims or Recipients?
Notes
9 All the World Loves a Picture
Introduction
The Newsletter and World Health: Two Visual Outlets of the WHO
1949–1959: The Tale of Victory
1959–1973: A Script for Development
Technical Assistance and Humanitarian Narratives, a Strange Union
Conclusion: All the World Loves a Picture
Notes
10 “A” as in Auschwitz, “B” as in Biafra
The International Media Event “Biafra”
Biafra and the Rhetoric of Holocaust Comparisons
Conclusion: Biafra and the Fragmented Universalization of the Holocaust
Notes
11 Finding the Right Image
The Story Breaks: Imagining the Ethiopian Famine in 1984–1985 and Its Consequences
Positively the Truth: New Turns in the Imaging of Development
Cultural Consequences
Notes
12 Dilemmas of Ethical Practice in the Production of Contemporary Humanitarian Photography
Setting the Scene: En Route to Shoot
The Birth of Regulation
Contemporary Communications and the Image Industry
Regulating an Exploitative Medium
Operationalizing Ethics
Ethical Tensions
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
