Abject and Activist Images: Photographic Representations of Violent and Exclusionary Times

Groups excluded from the scope of justice are at risk of moral disregard that can subject them to such harms as enslavement, torture, and genocide. In this talk I present research on two sociohistorical periods that were notorious for the vast scale and severity of violence inflicted on groups outside the scope of justice: Jim Crow (USA, 1890s -1950s) and Nazi Germany (1933-1945).  There are parallel between these two periods as both rendered previously-unimaginable violence normal. Photographs from these periods depicting violence and suffering inflicted on members of excluded groups are at the core of this talk that considers the content and function of such images. It also considers a smaller body of images produced by African Americans during Jim Crow and Jews in Nazi Germany. Despite destitution and hardship, individuals in both groups created images that documented the injustice of their times. My paper describes how both kinds of images—dehumanizing and humanizing—were used by targeted groups and their allies to counter the exclusionary ethos of their society and foster inclusionary change. I then consider the ethical challenges of displaying troubling images from the past today, addressing: When do such images promote the understanding of lives and contexts in the past, and when do they revictimize targeted groups by representing them as abject? Because such images served as effective vehicles for hate, might they reactivate quiescent racial stereotypes? How do museums and commemorative sites convey the complexity, humanity, and agency of targets as well as the societal conditions that gave rise to institutionalized violence? And because photographs appear to present incontrovertible evidence, how can they be presented so that viewers will understand that, while they are instructive, they can mislead or represent only a sliver of the complex social, political, and economic dynamics of specific places and times?