Cardiff, 17-18 January 2013
Cardiff University in Cardiff, Wales, has opened a call for papers for a 2-day conference that will bring together photographers, academic researchers, press officers, journalists, and members of community groups to enter a discourse on how photographs are used to represent people in situations of conflict and disaster, and to consider the real-world effects that photographic representation can have on the lives of people migrating from one country to another. The conference’s main goal is to create an initial forum for a continuing discourse between photographers, media officers, journalists, and researchers on photography.
The conference hopes to explore ways in which photographs throughout history have affected the way certain groups of people are represented in our present time, as well as the ways in which different groups of organizations use photography to inform or educate, and how photography is used within these different sectors to communicate with each other and their publics. Engaging with how people from areas of conflict and disaster view these images of themselves by others, the conference is interested in how they use photography themselves. In a broad sense, the conference hopes to reflect on how human rights and individual agency can be both promoted and violated through photographs, as well as the choices made by photographers and broadcasters when using these images.
The call for papers invite proposals of 200 words for submission by October 8, 2012 from all those interested in photography and human rights. Decisions will be communicated though e-mail by October 22, 2012. Proposals should be sent to the organizing committee at migration@cf.ac.uk. The conference invites presentations taking practical, personal, and theoretical approaches referring to any historical period and geographical area. Presentations will be 20 minutes long.
Topics for discussion may include but are not limited to:
• Are there patterns in the ways in which people in conflict or distress elsewhere are represented in photography?
• How do these patterns of representation affect how people who migrate to other countries are perceived and how well they can integrate and settle?
• How do past photographic representations of people from elsewhere link to contemporary photographs of countries in conflict or disaster situations and the way they are presented?
• How do non-photographic media, such as text and radio journalism, affect responses to photographs of other people?
• How do photographed people in situations of conflict or disaster, or in peacetime, interact with their media representations?
• What kinds of images do indigenous media and NGOs use to represent people in situations of conflict or disaster in their own countries and localities?
• What are the decision-making processes used by photographers picturing conflict and disaster?
• How do image the choices made in news media affect how images are used by development organisations or community groups, and vice versa?
• Where migration is concerned, what are the effects of images on perceptions of migrants, on social integration in host countries, and on the resolution of conflicts at home and in host countries?
• How is the educational role that images of others can have connected to issues of wider power relations between the global South and the global North in making, publishing/broadcasting and viewing images?
(information taken from http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/)
Cardiff University’s mission is to pursue research, learning and teaching of international distinction and impact.
Features of their vision and mission are a striving for excellence, integrity and innovation in every aspect of activity; a strongly collaborative approach; open and effective communications and an inclusive culture based on dignity, courtesy and respect.
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