Refugee #Selfies and the (Self-)Representation of Disenfranchised Social Groups
As a cultural object, the selfie is a contested image, most often encountered and analyzed in an archetypal and reductionist form, as vain self-portrait or vapid social celebration. However, it is important to acknowledge that there is a wide range of selfie genres, informed by specific motives and circumstances, and socially read and policed in complex ways. Unconventional selfie practices—including the refugee selfies explored here, but also other specific genres like soldier selfies, or selfies at funerals—can expand our understanding of the selfie and of the functions it can perform. This essay aims to contribute to this emerging conversation by unpacking the complexity of the refugee selfie as contested cultural object. Specifically, I explore the function of the refugee selfie as documentation of and by othered bodies, with a focus on these selfies’ potential to both subvert and maintain the power dynamics inherent to self- and cultural representation.
▻http://www.mediafieldsjournal.org/refugee-selfies
#photographie #réfugiés
