Hidden histories: a study of diasporic identity mediated through family photography
Molloy, Caroline (2022) Hidden histories: a study of diasporic identity mediated through family photography. In: Decolonizing Visuality: Working Towards Sustainable Sociocultural Practices - Counter-Image International Conference (CIIC22), 13-15 July 2022, Colegio Almada, Lisbon, Portugal. (Unpublished)
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The focus of this paper predominately centres on one photograph, which is used to pivot discussions around the power of vernacular photographic images as a form of knowledge production. I draw from my PhD research that looks at the emergence of transcultural identity through family photographs and recount an interview with one participant - Jan, who arrived in England fourteen years prior to my meeting her and do a close reading of her photographs.
Jan who initially identifies as English, then Turkish and later on during our encounter reveals her Kurdish heritage, discusses the importance of her family photographs in locating her diasporic identity. I look at the mnemonic value of her photographs, drawing reference from, amongst others, Annette Kuhn (1995, 2001), Martha Langford (2001), in evoking critical memories and examine how this photograph enables generational transference from memory to post-memory (Marianne Hirsch 1997). I examine the photograph not as evidence of ‘truth’ but as material though which anecdotes, fragments and feelings can be elicited. In doing this, I pay attention not only the photograph and the narrative but the social performance of Jan (Erving Goffman 1959) as shown through specific gestures, expressions, practices and think through how this informs my understanding of the photograph. In sharing a close ethnographic reading of the photograph (which this paper intends to do), a hidden history which would otherwise have passed unnoticed is revealed. The account that accompanies this photograph takes the reader beyond the visual surface and reveals a traumatic familial narrative. With the exception of the older man in the photograph, all the people depicted in the photograph died being illegally smuggled from Turkey to Britain. The meaning of this photograph is not anchored in its construction, instead it is ignited by the shared narrative, that sits within the wider cultural context of migration, death and bereavement. In sharing the narrative, the photograph simultaneously offers private and public insight into its meaning. It becomes a testament to the violent nature of death and plays an important role in mitigating the finality of death for Jan and her family. In doing so, it also speaks to a broader cultural narrative that hints at the fragility and rupture of families in migration. The narrative account is told and retold. Through this process details are forgotten and the memory shifts, the past is re-negotiated in the present as the memory shifts from mother to daughter.
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