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maahlon · 3 years

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an essay exploring colonialism & the myth of development

/ anthropology —

As is being discussed more and more in mainstream media, there are certain privileges that white people are accustomed to that people of color don’t automatically access, and are taken as natural, as just the way things are. Looking around, white people see a world where their ancestors’ cultures ‘evolved’ quicker than other countries, allowing them to then turn around and provide aid to those who happen to be struggling. This is the narrative of the past six hundred years that has been rewritten and justified countless times. We are left with a simple story that simultaneously puts the global north in a humble, aiding position and erases the centuries of violence that allowed for their development. However, at the root of this narrative is the often unseen and unspoken history of colonialism and development, occurrences perpetuated by Europe, and later the United States, that are deeply entwined both in historical and ideological practice. In order to access the privileges allowed to white people, they first employed colonialism, which took millions of lives and enacted structures of subordination that informed development’s path of destruction and control. It becomes easy to forget the history when the current development industry works tirelessly to repeat it, and trains us to accept dominant narratives with a lack of historical perspective and based on short time scales (Hickel 2017). This essay will be an exploration into the complex relationship between colonialism and development, two major racially biased, global revenue producing industries that have had detrimental effects on any person or country even remotely involved.

At the root of it, colonialism works on a racial hierarchy and with constant exploitation of those deemed lower on the ladder. Within the narratives of both colonialism and development, a story of a human order is spread and naturalized, a story that sees white people from Europe and later the United States in positions of privilege while places like Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are painted as simply less developed, and therefore less far along in their evolution as states. This basic narrative solidifies the idea that the global north is employing superlative systems and ideologies of progress, an idea that is inherently Eurocentric but is widely accepted as simply the truth. The efforts by the global north to enforce their own values — or as they saw them, the ‘right’ values — on indigenous communities were justified under the guise of modernization or improvement. In the early twentieth century, the process of development supplemented the racism that had been formerly used within colonialism with a new language and set of discourses. The nature of the pervasive global north’s ‘right’ values made it so patriarchy and ethnocentrism defined the form development took (Escobar 1995).

The process of development allowed the global north to continue this notion of improvement by singling out and defining problems within formerly colonized states, such as ideas about malnourishment, illiteracy, underdevelopment, without taking responsibility for their occurrences. After these new illustrations of the global south’s ‘deficiencies’ were solidified, aid from the global north through development would then treat and reform them (Escobar 1995), maintaining the hierarchy that keeps certain countries in privileged existence and others in poverty.

The common justification of colonization and imperialism was that the colonizers could ‘improve’ an existing state, and within the demands of capitalism, colonizers could ensure an increase in ‘productivity.’ These changes and demands for the intensification of extraction were not necessary for survival and were an example of Europe taking advantage of other countries under the guise of advancement. This emergence of capitalism was not natural — it was violence. The notion of private property itself is violence as in its initial condition, private property had to have been stolen. The effects of this enterprise culture can be seen more recently as well, as within the process of development there is an intentional situation of economic exploitation of the global south (Escobar 1995) that still benefits the global north to this day. However, though productivity and efficiency are imperative for financial gain, for profit, they are not essential for a high quality of life. Capitalism naturalizes the idea that profit is equatable to existence in the way that it is necessary to make money to have a legitimate life. But the core concepts of money and wage work are not in themselves “natural,” nor had they been essential to human life in any way prior to capitalism. In The Divide, Jason Hickel discusses the violent history that links capitalism, colonialism, development and a process known as enclosure. In England, for example, the barbarity and arrogance required to colonize a nation was developed by their practice of enclosure — which is also arguably the birth of capitalism. Hickel examines how wealthy nobles enabled the enclosure movement by privatizing land, displacing huge populations, and clearing hundreds of villages, all in order to make a profit (2017:77-78). Beginning with enclosure, England has a long history of siphoning off resources from other countries for use in its own, and much of it’s colonizing intention was driven by capitalism and profit making. Enclosure created a context of artificial scarcity that caused a cultural shift requiring competition in order to survive. With the use of methods such as dispossession and enclosure of their own lands, then the experimentation of land enclosure in Ireland, England developed a system of colonization that required a violent theft of bodies and resources but yielded many benefits for the home country. As Hickel later discusses, many functions of development were just colonialism operating in a new time period. From the early twentieth century onwards, the global north had essentially designed a new world order that placed themselves at the top, ensuring opportunities available to continue siphoning raw materials from the global south and sell manufactured goods back to them (2017:101). This was the point of enclosure hundreds of years prior, and illustrates the deep and influential relationship between colonialism and development.

Violence is an essential component in the process of colonialism and its modern counterpart, development. Both, in practice, are intrinsically linked to violence in many forms, violence used in order for the global north to ensure complete control over the rest of the world. Physical coercion and the threat of bodily harm filled the pockets of Christopher Columbus and his cohorts when they first ravaged Central America and ensured their security in colonizing the ‘New World.’

After colonialism, newly independent nations began to use progressive reforms, such as increasing wages for workers and forming unions, as well as investing in public services and nationalizing key resources — progressive policies that were similar to those being used in the global north at the time. These reforms were allowing the global south to flourish and grow in all the ways colonialism had inhibited it, closing the income gap seen around the world with a rate of growth four to five times higher than under colonialism. In the mid twentieth century, leaders of the global south created the Non-Aligned Movement to fight tooth and nail to change standards of living in their countries, and to improve their position in the world. Such positive reforms for the global south were causing the global north to lose its access to the cheap labour and raw materials they were accustomed to under colonialism, and as these structures of subordination collapsed they began to violently intervene. The US backed coups that disposed of successful, progressive leaders in places such as Ghana, Chile, Brazil, and many more, were used to remake economic policies of such countries in the interest of the global north (Hickel 2017:132). Clearly, within the history of modern development practices, use of physical violence to ensure the success of oppression is commonplace as well. Though eventually allowed independence from colonial powers, states in the global south suffered immensely from the coups backed by Europe and the US when democratically elected leaders threatened to deny the global north access to raw materials and cheap labor. The current world narrative ensures the world believes the global north is doing nothing but aid the rest of the world in its development when in reality, many countries have been actively prevented from establishing democracies that would allow them to govern themselves (Hickel 2017:124). Ideas that ensured the global north’s success during the process of development often seem to have stemmed directly from practices that worked in its favor during colonialism. After coups destroyed the security of newfound freedom, the global north employed an entirely new and different form of violence to ensure control of the global south by seizing control of developing countries’ economies, “Conquering them all over again without spilling a drop of blood” (Hickel 2017:148). After only two or three decades of real economic independence, the global north began forcing the global south to serve its own economic interests. The use of the International Monetary Fund and Structural adjustment programs to further oppress the global south and ensure monetary gain for the global north was where the violence of current development strategies differed from colonialist practices. By forcing the global south into debt that was impossible to repay the global north has employed an economic tactic that seems, at face value, to be less violent. However, this practice guarantees much more violence to occur while countries struggle to pay back impossible loans, with money being directed away from public service and into Wall Street instead. As Jason Hickel puts it, economic and political freedom has been attacked —

“Interventions by the World Bank and the IMF in the name of development have shifted political power away from democratically elected decision-making bodies and placed it in the hands of remote, unelected bureaucrats.” (2017:183)

Actual development of the global south after colonialism ceased was blocked because the US and Europe wanted to maintain access to cheap labour, raw materials, and open markets — everything needed to continue allowing the global north to make more money.

While it is important to explore the consequences of physical and political violence on the global south, effects of the violence of colonialism are immeasurable if the subconscious damage to colonized people is not considered. Current discussions of reparations to colonized countries rarely recognize even the labour yielded, let alone any subsequent mental ramifications. Many post-colonial writers have discussed the kind of mental debates and struggles with identity colonized people went through while being forced to exist in increasingly politicized bodies. In his book Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon discusses the psychological effects of existing as a black man in a country colonized by a white, European state. “It is in fact customary in Martinique to dream of a form of salvation that consists of magically turning white.” (1952: 33) That Fanon feels that with whiteness comes relief and privilege is clearly evident in how he visualizes this statement to be a solid fact that is shared among people of color in Martinique at this time. This idea of “magically” turning white is almost wishing for the erasure of a blackness that causes pain and subordination. However, this desire is written with unambiguous contempt and bitterness as Fanon knows very well that it is not his blackness that causes such subordination but the whiteness that is sought after so strongly itself.

This alludes to a constant struggle being undertaken while simply trying to exist with an identity of being a person of color, especially within the diaspora — an identity that was persistently deeply discouraged by white colonizers with their reinforcements of hierarchy and subordination. Colonizers, on the other hand, were able to live on stolen land while enjoying rights, possessions, and “benefiting from every prestige.” (Memmi, Greenfield 1957) In The Colonizer and the Colonized, Albert Memmi and Howard Greenfield, like Fanon, employ a dialogue regarding the colonized, recognizing the privileges allowed to the colonizers, and subsequently making a connection between freedom and white skin. Europeans would never have represented anything aspirational to countries they colonized and enslaved had they not done just that, as at the time the living standards were no better in the home countries. But by forcing entry and control over lands, people, and markets, colonizers came to represent power and independence to the people they oppressed into governance. Memmi and Greenfield discussed the effect this had on colonized perceptions of skin color, writing that, “The first attempt of the colonized is the change his condition by changing his skin. There is a tempting model very close at hand — the colonizer.” (1957: 164)

Whereas physical violence enacts structures of abuse that are sustainable only as long as they are being enforced, cultural hegemony, arguably, solidifies lifetimes of control and oppression. As has been explored here, colonized people were forced into believing and living ideologies that portrayed their cultures in a negative way. This kind of idealogical control is enforced within modern development practices as well, with the narrative of the impoverished and backwards global south frequently permeated through global north popular culture. The continent of Africa, for example, is often stereotyped as such a place being rife with corrupt dictators that are not advanced enough to appreciate the virtues of democracy as the global north understands it (Hickel 2017). However, before capitalism and colonial intervention, places like Africa and the rest of the global south were doing just as well, if not better, than Europeans. By viewing the global south simply as a space of deficiency, within development and colonialism, the centuries of plunder that caused this lack become erased.

Anthropology has often been accused of being implicit in colonialism, with early anthropologists frequently benefiting fiscally and academically by their research in indigenous communities on behalf of colonial states. Colonialism operated on the incorrect and prejudiced belief that people outside of Europe were somehow lesser — less advanced, less developed, less efficient. Early anthropologists were not only complicit in this belief system but even helped solidify it as ‘fact’ by sustaining the idea of certain global south societies being more primitive than European societies, theories garnered supposedly with objective research and fieldwork. This strengthened the power colonialism had to subordinate people of the colonies, while anthropologists themselves benefited, like other Europeans in a colony, from being members of the dominant group. No matter how much anthropologists were averse to colonialism, by working within it they occupied a position of superiority with economic, psychological, and political privilege while being protected by imperial law (Lewis 1973, Gough 1968). However, anthropologists Emma Crewe and Richard Axelby argue that by respecting and recognizing the value of indigenous systems of thought, anthropologists actually successfully challenged European imperialism (2012:44). Similarly, they point out that some anthropologists argue that though anthropology had undeniable roots in colonialism, it is a mistake to dismiss it as primarily a helpful force to the imperialist administration (Bremen 1999), instead designating it as simply the “problem child of the colonial encounter.” Although valid, these viewpoints deny any accountability of colonial anthropologists and suggests their involvement was merely contemporaneous and subsequent, rather than complicit. It also does nothing to recognize the benefits anthropologists received by existing in their privileged positions within the colonial system, benefits of which were attainable solely based on the exploitative nature of anthropologists’ work on the natives (Lewis 1973).

Anthropologists working in the development enterprise face similar criticisms of complicity,

Accountability is necessary for change, and while discourses on anthropology’s complicity in the development industry are still being argued, accountability of past actions and benefits gained may make the difference in the outcome. Academic discussions about colonialism within anthropology have the obligation to recognize the history, as, such has been discussed here, the relationship between the two are undeniable and have had great consequences. Acknowledging history is an important part of determining the relationship between colonialism and development, and is a necessary step in avoiding blind acceptance of commonly reiterated biased narratives.

The current global narrative and world order portrays Europe and North America as helpers that work tirelessly to provide charity for impoverished countries rather than perpetuate cycles of poverty. This particular narrative is so dominant it prevents one from actually perceiving how the structure really works. As this essay has discussed, this narrative has been built up and informed by hundreds of years of oppression by these same countries that supposedly are trying to end poverty. Through colonialism, Europe employed practices of physical violence and cultural hegemony to enforce their exploitative ideologies on the global north under the guise of improvement and increasing productivity. After colonialism began to end, within the process of development, the global north then employed active policies intended to halt any progress the global south had begun to make in the little time they were allowed their freedom. This essay sought to explore the processes of colonialism and development, touching upon how they both engage Eurocentric and racially biased overtones to inform them, setting up the global north as the apex of human achievement while enforcing their ‘right’ values on the global south. It also focussed on one strong theme common between colonialism and development: their intrinsic link to violence — physical, political, economical, and psychological. Within this, there was brief exploration into the ideological effects of colonialism on colonized people and the effects of stereotypes the development industry implements. Lastly, it also has sought to explore anthropology’s implicitness in colonialism and the ongoing debates about anthropologists currently working within the development enterprise, discussing the importance of accountability if the current world narrative is ever to be challenged. Both movements caused almost immeasurable physical, emotional, psychological and economic pain.

Crewe, Emma & Axelby, Richard. (2012) Anthropology and Development: Culture, Morality and Politics in a Globalised World. 2012. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Escobar, Atruro. (1995) Encountering Development: The Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton University Press.

Fanon, Frantz. (1952) Black Skin, White Masks. United Kingdom: Pluto Press

Gough, Kathleen. (1968b) ‘Anthropology and imperialism.’ Monthly Review 19.11: 12–24.

Hickel, Jason. (2017) The Divide. London: William Heninemann

Hickel, Jason. (2018) Anti-colonial Theory; Post-development Theory; Revision Session. Lectures delivered for module AN52005B General Principles Of Social Anthropology Spring Term (2017-18). London: Goldsmiths University of London

Lewis, Diane. (1973) ‘Anthropology and Colonialism.’ Current Anthropology Vol. 14, No. 5

Memmi, Albert & Greenfield, Howard. (1957) The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press

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maahlon · 3 years

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an essay discussing structural violence and how it inter-relates with other forms of violence using HIV/AIDS as a focus point

/ critical medical anthropology —

With the news of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s death in late November of 2018, the newspapers and newsfeeds of anyone paying attention were filled with warm condolences and reflections on a life well lived. His death came the day before the commemorative World AIDS Day, established the year before he became president, which is an internationally recognized day dedicated to raising awareness about the disease and mourning those who perished from its pandemic. Yet as LGBTQ+ activists and ally protesters have been quick to point out, Bush, and his presidential predecessor Ronald Reagan, have been heavily critiqued for their inaction and subsequent overall negligence of the HIV/AIDS crisis as it unfolded in their country and around the world. The lack of governmental action under the leadership of these men exemplifies the implications of structural violence, and its intersection with other forms of violence, in a very timely manner. Those in authority’s deliberate refusal to acknowledge the pandemic perpetuates this violence, and the association of the disease with notions about race, gender, sexuality, and their links with its pathology (Comaroff 2007). The privilege necessary for such a level of apathy was and is of great consequence, as it is the exact same structures in society that subordinate and harm some that keep life secure and comfortable for the more privileged (Taylor 2018). These structures become violent when the execution of their realities negatively affect certain groups of people disproportionately and discriminatorily.

The structural violence discussed here is in regard to indirect harm of intentional and non-intentional structures of negligence and policies that we articulate as being violent, specifically such that has effected and continues to affect mass numbers of people, cross-culturally. This type of violence has no singular or clear perpetrator, and is not necessarily physically executed, but is inherent to the functioning of a specific society. Using the infection of HIV and the subsequent disease of AIDS as a focus point, the idea of structural violence and how it intersects with symbolic, physical, and cultural violence can be examined thoroughly. Within a society, the people who get exposed to HIV, develop AIDS, and who gets tested and treated for these ailments is not random nor equitable — it is largely affected by social and political forces (Simoni 2018). Examining the different types of violence and how they intersect can allow researchers to come to informed conclusions about holistic causations of suffering.

The idea of social “structure” is not necessarily a visible, physical thing but aspects of its construction can be seen through unwritten yet agreed rules of human interaction, access (or lack thereof) to public resources, and anywhere else people, culture, and the state intersect. The varying social structures in which humans of different geographical locations and civilizations operate determine the experience of people, on large and small scales. The concept of structure is one that denotes support, organization, and assistance, the backbone of a society — all ideas that reinforce the notion of an impartial and unprejudiced support system. However, the concept of “structural violence” takes the assumed neutrality out of the concept of a societal structure, from something that is unquestionably naturalized, and forces attention to the forms of injustices, suffering, and inequity that are deeply established within the everyday, ordinary composition of the world (Taylor 2018). The availability and the accessibility of state operated and privatized institutions such as health care services, including understanding, advice, treatment, and disease prevention, is determined by social forces and can easily be the cause of suffering from structural violence.

The illness caused by HIV and its subsequent disease AIDs is a well known and extremely destructive global pandemic responsible for, according to the World Health Organization, over 39 million deaths since its outbreak. However, through looking at the epidemic and the continued effects to this day beyond statistics and numbers, exemplified by the anthropological perspective of everyday existence, it is possible to consider wider sources and causation of suffering through different forms of violence. The wider scope of understanding can be accessed by consideration of moral questions that concern social coherence and continuity within societies suffering with transformations (Dilger 2010). As has Paul Farmer explored in many volumes of ethnographic research, the HIV and AIDS epidemic is widespread, cross-cultural, and directly linked to, effected by, and perpetuating of structural, symbolic, cultural, and even physical violence. Farmer uses the description of his experience of what is “ethnographically visible” (2004:305) in central Haiti to engage with the audience’s lack of full understanding about what suffering is truly like as opposed to pure facts and figures. In one book, Farmer negotiates the biographies of two people, Acéphie Joseph and Chouchou Louis, in order to effectively convey the ‘texture’ of dire affliction, where statistics and graphs do not do it justice. The author considers these two people’s stories to be exemplary of millions of people’s lives and suffering in Haiti. What seem to be personal life choices on a small, everyday scale are structured by racism, sexism, political violence, and poverty (Farmer 2004b), as these patients are the literal embodiment of global structures of inequality and structural violence (Robins 2006). In regard to disease and suffering, it becomes easy to blame the victim for their life choices leading up to and during sickness, as well as accepting the permeating nature of infectious diseases as being reason for their transmission. Considering a disease to have an apolitical “natural history” such as this is regarding it without contextualization or recognition of the social forces, including but not limited to racism, poverty, and homophobia, that shape the course of the disease in individual people, places, and entire populations (Farmer, Nizeye, Stulac, Keshavjee 2006). This is the effect of structural violence on sufferers in everyday life, and can be seen within the AIDS crisis. Farmer continues to remind readers within his ethnography that by relying on statistical figures to fully understand this proportion of affliction within a global pandemic it is easy to objectify the suffering of countless people who become reduced to numbers without context to their specific situations. In this way, structural violence continually erases the voices of the anonymous victims, who have few rights in history (Farmer 2004b).

Looking at the HIV/AIDS crisis globally and within an ethnographic context, it is possible to see how the forces of structural violence inter-relate with other forms of violence, such as symbolic, physical, and cultural violence. Structural violence and the naturalization of its engagement with individuals and specified groups is integral for the hierarchies and power structures within societies to remain intact. Violence exerted indirectly yet systematically by everyone that belongs to a social order is structural violence (Farmer 2004), however in order for structural violence to remain dominating within a society, aspects of social life reinforce it’s power through justification and legitimization, making that and direct violence look or perhaps even feel right, or at least right enough as to not cause suspicion (Galtung 1990). This legitimization is the execution of cultural violence, where aspects of human social culture reinforce structural violence and thus the suffering of those effected by it. Cultural violence is pervasive and works in tandem with other socially constructed forms of violence that have very real consequences. As Robins points out, pain, illness, and suffering are often represented as and understood to be not only physical but also private phenomena that are practically unrelated to the social world (2006:313). As can be clearly seen with structural, cultural, and symbolic violence, this representation is purely untrue, very misleading, and possibly damaging to vulnerable people susceptible to victimhood. The nature of the marginalized and thus vulnerable people that are more susceptible to HIV and AIDS is one that reinforces and breeds stigma, whether that be by sexual orientation, race, economic standing, or gender. These vulnerable populations are unable to access the same resources to protect themselves from infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS (Herdt 2001) that are available to people who fit the privileged white, cis-gendered, heteronormative, and financially stable structures in society. The stigmas and ignominies that became constructed around the disease propagated negative ideas about the sufferers, such as the fact that the spread of the disease has encouraged the vilification of homosexuality, despite compelling evidence that its transmission in Africa, for example, is primarily heterosexual (Comaroff 2007). This creates a large impact of not only structural violence but symbolic violence additionally, which is deeply ingrained and not necessarily able to be controlled consciously. Cultural and symbolic violence, and the stigma that enables the continuation of suffering, can be constructed and reestablished through collective and public memory. Memory itself is socially manifest (Fabian 2007) and shared by every living thing, to varying degrees. A driving force in the continual spreading of stereotypes or false understandings about groups of people is a shared agreement on meaning, and what happened in the past, despite whether or not the stigma has a factual basis. However, people from the same group or society, or different groups or societies, can create cross-cultural memory with people ‘remembering’ the same occurrences differently, and having different perspectives on the same event or time period. This lack of factual basis for assumptions regarding the contraction of HIV/AIDS can be socially manifest, as well as in perceived understandings of medical processes, as discussed in Emily Martin’s ethnography regarding disease and illness. She specifies the concept of the human immune system as a site for people’s conceptions and misconceptions about strength, and perceived ability to defend themselves against the epidemic — the immune system as a “measure of health that allows a single standard of comparison among people or among groups of people” (1994:388) that many people referred to in her various interviews. For example, Martin cites multiple misconceptions from her interviewees such as from John Parker, who said that, “You get HIV while another person does not because ‘maybe your immune system just isn't as beefed up’”. She also quotes from an interview with Barry Folsom, who expressed extremely misguided views that reflect structural and symbolic violence, saying: “People without a good living standard need vaccines, whereas vaccines would only clog up the more refined immune systems of middle-class or upper-class people.” (1994:388). With the AIDS crisis, the extremely varying degrees of understanding of what the disease even was, how it affected sufferers, who it effected, why it effected them, and what treatment was available to whom caused differing memories of the time period and the disease itself, furthering the effects of structural, symbolic, and cultural violence.

What is specific to the stigma surrounding this particular infectious disease is what is referred to as “sexual stigma,” or homophobia (Winskell, Sabben 2016) which, when experienced, becomes anticipated and internalized, thus reducing opportunities for healthcare services and access to information about prevention, and increasing the possibility of risk-taking and a positive HIV status (Anderson et al., 2015; Fay et al., 2011; Risher et al., 2013; Rispel et al., 2011). Symbolic violence may be embedded in cultural patterns, but the harm is reaffirmed, spread, and reproduced by perpetrators, and when internalized, by victims themselves. This is furthered by that fact that stigma inauspiciously highlights the vulnerabilities of a community, and within the HIV/AIDS crisis, the person who is related in some way to the infection and disease — whether that be through illness, or through discussing or drawing attention to it — is deemed responsible for bringing the pandemic into the community (Herdt 2001). Additionally, widely and consistently, especially during the beginning formative years of the crisis, the people most affected by HIV and AIDS were already sufferers of structural violence, and all of these stigmatized groups of people endured social disapproval and the symbolic violence that accompanies that prior to the development of the disease. However, until the pandemic, the sexual activities of male identifying people had rarely provoked public controversy or been majorly questioned (Ellison 2003). This is a privilege specific to gender identity and perception, and this view, though valid and interesting to note, is not intersectional. By lumping together homosexual men with more privileged heterosexual men, and by not considering the difference in treatment between white men and black men, therein lies a danger of erasure of suffering and subordination. Throughout all of this, if one is lucky enough to see a doctor, within treatment itself sufferers may experience a continuation of the structural, symbolic and cultural violence as medical practitioners are not trained to understand, handle, or alter cross-cultural patients — or are they able to personally take on social forces such as structural inequality (Farmer 2006). The combination of these vulnerabilities provide breeding ground for different forms of violence that interact with structural violence, which reaffirms negative ideas about people with the disease, resulting in the perpetuation of tangible, physical suffering. It is through processes such as these that preexisting symbolic and cultural violence can interact with structural violence and cause the immensity of suffering to be even greater than if they were individual actors in society.

Clearly there is not an innocuous or random pattern that determines what people become infected with HIV or where people are least likely to be able to access AIDS treatment. Another example of vulnerable people being more susceptible to the disease are people in poverty or those suffering the effects of colonialism, both states of existence that are . In efforts to escape poverty and the violence it brings to vulnerable members of society, people turn to substance use and sex work, which contribute to driving the epidemic. Injection drug users, gay men, and people of color, all groups who already suffer from stigmatization and subordination, were the first groups to be affected by HIV and later widely became infected in the United States (Simoni 2018). Clearly people in the US, UK, and Europe were susceptible to the varying forms of violence and thus there were many victims of the AIDS epidemic. However, within the crisis, unable to face the homegrown disruption, the global North deflected yet again ideas of the primal other onto Africa — a place of dangerous desire, a projection of a self never fully tamable (Comaroff 2007). This was a continuation of violence the global North had always used to justify the various injustices done to the global South, and continually the countries most severely struck with the disease operate and grapple with crumbling infrastructure that was inherited from colonial rule (Larikin 2000). Historical sites of structural violence, places that suffered under the hand of colonialism are constantly plagued with structural, symbolic, and cultural violence. Unable to stop the harmful cycles of each, HIV/AIDS is a lived reality in postcolonies, and the continent of Africa suffers not only with the disease but with a retelling of colonialism through once again becoming a site for European philanthropy while simultaneously epitomizing another otherness (Comaroff 2007). As if a continuation of colonialism itself, the most destructive ramifications of the AIDS crisis has been shifted to the global South, where the commodification of people and life make them no less disposable to the privileged (Comaroff 2007). Leatherman and Thomas discuss this in what they call their local-level observations of one specific conflict, a twenty year civil war in Peru (2009:197). Ethnography is valuable for understanding broader concepts as these authors argue that the points they make in their case study are broadly applicable across many instances of global conflict (Leatherman, Thomas 2009). The authors argue that though violent conflict has many negative effects on both the individual and the social environment, where individuals and communities are situated within the structures of society and economy determine that they experience these effects with varying degrees of vulnerability and resilience (2009:198). In addition, structural violence is aided by cultural and symbolic violence, which goes much deeper than other systems as it allows for the continuation and increased efficacy of violence, all of which continues to thrive in places that have been weakened and made subordinate by the ever dominating global North. These health inequalities are arguably not only the product of damaging social structures, such as colonialism and apartheid, but also more recently, different forms of postcolonial states have employed indifference and inaction in relation to addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis and administering prevention techniques and treatment (Robins 2004).

As has been explored in this essay, suffering caused by structural violence and its interaction with symbolic, cultural, and physical violence, when explored through an anthropological lens, can ensure suffering from disease is understood within the sociopolitical contexts with which it is being contracted and experienced. HIV/AIDS seep into the cracks of society, targeting inequality caused by sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, and poverty (Simoni 2018) and this fact exemplifies the force of the multiple types of violence on the infection and disease. Through looking at the effects of the violence through a number of means, including but not limited to pure statistics and instead expanding the narrative to include local and global experiences, it is possible to understand the realized, contextualized effects of conceptual and theoretical categorizations such as structural violence, and how it intersects with the multiplicities of differing types of violence. As explored by Farmer and touched upon here, engaging with social accounts of experience with the particular phenomenon relevant to the research being undertaken, as opposed to merely recounting facts and figures, can add depth and further captivate those seeking to learn more, potentially even reaching a wider audience through the more accessible expression of data. In addition, through examining the effect of cultural and symbolic violence on the HIV/AIDS crisis, and by looking at the impact of this on previously colonized spaces, it is possible to see the intersection between structural violence and these other forms.

Suffering from disease, like most human happenings, is not limited to nor situated in purely the experience, though this is a challenge to recognize during an event or even while attempting to treat or prevent it. Looking at the wider societal structures and how they intercept with the various varieties of violence such as the few chronicled in this essay allows for a clearer understanding of the true nature of something like the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Simultaneously, examining examples such as the epidemic and the ethnographies about it such as Farmers are instrumental in understanding how structural violence can and does inter-relate with other forms of violence, such as symbolic, cultural, and physical. Without recognition or study of these forms of violence it may remain invisible within the negligence that perpetuates it. But the chants of protesters objecting to the former President Bush administration’s negligence and inaction during the AIDS crisis define the effect of structural violence on the disease and suffering more succinctly and profoundly than I ever could —

History will recall

George Bush did nothing at all.

Comaroff, Jean (2007) ‘Beyond Bare Life: AIDS, (Bio)Politics, and the Neoliberal Order’ Public Culture, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 197 - 215, Duke University Press

Hansjörg Dilger; Morality, Hope and Grief: Towards an Ethnographic Perspective in HIV/AIDS Research 2010

Ellison, Marcia (2003) A Authoritative Knowledge and Single Women’s Unintentional Pregnancies, Abortions, Adoption, and Single Motherhood: Social Stigma and Cultural Violence, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 17(3):322-347,American Anthropological Association

Farmer, P. & Connors, Margaret. Women, Poverty & AIDS: Sex, Drugs and Structural Violence (Series in Health and Social Justice),Common Courage Press; Reprint edition (September 1996)

Farmer, P An Anthropology of Structural Violence, Current Anthropology, Vol. 45, No. 3 (June 2004), pp. 305-325 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

Farmer, P (2004b) 'On Suffering and Structural Violence.' In Bourgois & Scheper Hughes (eds) Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. (Oxford, Blackwell, 2004)

Farmer, Paul; Nizeye, Bruce; Stulac, Sara; & Keshavjee, Salmaan (2006) ‘Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine’ PLoS Medicine, vol. 3, no. 10

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Robins, Steven (2006) ‘From “Rights” to “Ritual”: AIDS Activism in South Africa’ American Anthropologist, vol. 108, no. 2, pp. 312 - 323 American Anthropological Association

HIV, AIDS, and the “Great Epi Divide” by Professor Jane M. Simoni, Psychology, University of Washington https://www.washington.edu/omad/ctcenter/projects-common-book/mountains-beyond-mountains/hiv-aids/ 2018?

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€ Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA 2016

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maahlon · 3 years

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an essay exploring why Susan Sontag may be weary of images by now, from an anthropological perspective.

/ visual anthropology —

The use of photography and film within anthropology has accelerated fairly proportionately with the increase of the image in popular culture over the past hundred years. The image can be anything we decide, and has become an important aspect of modern existence. Anthropologically speaking, Mead has argued that, both implicitly and explicitly, the discipline has had to accept the responsibility of making and preserving records of human beings on this earth (1995:3). This use of the image has served anthropology well, however in an age where immediate reproduction, sharing, and communication of images is the norm, it is necessary to question their capacity and potential for exhausting effect as mere images dominate the world, and seem to stimulate everything (Mitchell 2005). Within this, it is valuable to consider the intents and power of the image makers alongside the images themselves. The following essay is a brief exploration into this debate, considering the power of images within anthropology and the wider world, their relationship to text and other forms of visual practices, and how the intents of the image producers fit within the influence of images themselves. This will be situated around and within the research of writer, filmmaker, and political activist Susan Sontag, and considering whether or not she is weary of this potential power of images. It is clear that the image is an instrument of power (Morgan 1997) but it is through deep consideration as to where this power comes from and what it affects that it is possible to determine why Sontag may be weary of them.

The image has always been a point of contention within the anthropological discipline. Film and photography’s power in anthropology is rooted in structures of oppression, with its history steeped in naturalization of negative racial stereotypes and its constant need for ethical reevaluation. However, by initially and stubbornly relying on note taking and ethnographer’s memories, anthropology became a science of words, with those who relied on words being unwilling to change (Mead 1995). There is still a certain degree of pushback, but with the increase in participation and research under the guise of visual anthropology, the image has gained a degree of respect within the discipline. Despite its many intellectual turns and transformations, anthropology has become and continues to be a highly visual practice, which has resulted in, intentionally and incidentally, a rich photographic and image-based legacy (Edwards 2009). Further to this turn in anthropology, visual research pushes the boundaries of disciplines, allowing for a freer movement of information. Though not strictly anthropologically, Sontag has researched images and human interactions with them almost exhaustively for over forty years, framing images almost as if they are animalistic in their influence and portrayal of human life, yet with a constant reminder of our power and intent of production. Sontag notes early in her book On Photography that to photograph means to place oneself in relation to the surrounding world in a way that feels like knowledge, and therefore, like power (1977:2). Images produced in real time can act as immediate records, holding people accountable, while also providing a platform for performative action. This is extremely powerful in regard to what goes into the creation and production of an image, and what comes of its existence. Photographs are experience captured, appropriations of the thing being photographed (Sontag 1977) though unrooted and ungrounded in time or reality due to the fact that they give people and imaginary possession of a past that is unreal (Sontag 1977). This is, in a sense, taking a carbon-copy of the world from a certain perspective. Sontag points out that the awareness of an event that gathers when photographs are taken is purely constructed (2003:17) as opposed to objective portrayals of reality. Even within image making under the guise of artistry there is a common understanding that artistic intent is rooted in creating a reflection on reality, whether it is a rejection of it or not. Anthropologically speaking, the rare combinations of artistic ability and scientific fidelity that have provided exceptional ethnographic films can be cherished, but it is not necessary to demand that film and images in the field have the earmarks of a work of art (Mead 1975). This is due to the fact that anthropology, which is seen as a social science, is often corralled into purely written academia, where image making itself, let alone image making with artistic value, is looked down upon. However, recently, with the industrialization of general use photography, it now, like every mass art form, is not practiced by most people as an art; instead, as a social rite and a tool of power (Sontag 1977). As Sontag points out, photography and image making has gone from an elite activity to something that is practiced widely, and can be used as a tool for the implementation of influence by many. It is important to consider who is doing the making and why they are making within discussions of fatigue regarding the production and consumption of visual texts.

Images are tiring. It is no wonder Sontag may be weary of their power — however ambivalent, images still demand attention, require engagement, and encourage action, even if the result is action against their desires. The energy required to produce and decipher images is boundless. The conscious effort it requires to avoid absorbing images, especially with the advent of public commercial advertising and increasing popularity and reach of social media, gives them power in the sense that there is a sustained effort expelled in avoidance. Even if this represents a stand against images, the negative connotations and constant awareness of their pervasive and nonconsensual influence on the mind inherently acknowledges the power they hold over us. Images also have power through their applied personhood — they exhibit physical and virtual bodies, and behave with a voice and a face that confronts the viewer (Mitchell 1996). With this constant confrontation comes a potential for exhaustion, especially when considering that the point of a photograph or other visual text is to provoke, whether that be an action, thought, or even just a memory. The photograph, Sontag argues, provides a quick way of seizing something and a compact, transferable way of memorizing and distributing it: “Nonstop imagery (television, streaming video, movies) is our surround, but when it comes to remembering, the photograph has the deeper bite,” (2003:19). Referencing images as our nonstop surroundings gives weight to the argument that Sontag is tired of the power of images as they are extremely pervasive and intervene in everyday life. Mitchell argues that images may actually be a lot weaker than is usually considered (1996:74), such as the point where images can become banal due to their pervasiveness in everyday life. Desensitization seeps in and response limited, though this does not discourage an image’s power, especially considering every engagement is particular and objective to the perspective it comes from. Photographs can, and do, faithfully record gruesome cruelties and crimes, which one can feel obliged to observe, but Sontag argues that one should be obliged to think about what it means to view them and how much it is possible to fully comprehend what they show (2003:75). Visual texts may create a physical separation between viewers and what is being portrayed, however it is in actuality a process that brings the viewer close, their understandings of faraway happenings supplemented by a magnifying glass that gives the picture unnecessary, indecent information (Sontag 2003). This is a return to her ideas about photographs and image making being reflections or copies of reality as opposed to reality itself, expanding on this idea by including notions about photographs exposing a harsher sense of reality then is necessary. The camera is an instrumental extension of our senses that ruthlessly records with little abstraction (Collier, Collier 1986) however it is human direction that the camera follows. This can be applied to any reproduction of reality as photographs furnish evidence — the camera record justifies and incriminates (Sontag 1977) whatever the photographer or image maker decides. At this juncture, the question is begging to be posed — is the image powerful, or are the image makers loud through their images?

As Sontag famously began many of her publications with the statement “to collect photographs is to collect the world,” (1977:1) and over forty years later, at a time where images inflict their influences and desires in every conceivable form at every conceivable turn, it is important to consider where this power truly comes from. As text has dominated the anthropological discipline for most if not all of its existence, it is necessary to consider if written elements are what critiques, especially writers, should be weary of. Text is thorough, complex, and considerably influential, and thus assumably extremely powerful. Textual accounts, however, do not collect the world as Sontag argues photographs do. Sontag argues that a written account may struggle more, depending on its complexity, reference, vocabulary, and distribution, to reach a wider audience than a photograph, which has only one language and although must be ‘read,’ is destined potentially for all (2003:17). Although arguably images need a certain level of education to be purposefully read, writing skills and proficient literacy are an extreme privilege that make non-visual texts inaccessible. Ethnographic textual accounts cannot have the same representational agency as images through their inability to be easily accessible, and are thus often less powerful for a wider audience. The process that goes into education, research, and production of a piece of writing, especially an ethnographic text, arguably requires subjectivity and a specific perspective and experience of the world for it to be successful, even if the aim is to be objective. Photographs, additionally, are as much an interpretation of the world as other handmade visual pieces, such as paintings and drawings, are (Sontag 1977), and arguably as dependent on and influenced by the author’s perspective as written pieces. But while perhaps photographic images are not statements so much as pieces of the world, miniature realities so to speak (Sontag 1977), it is important to note that though photographs are representations of a certain physical reality, the decision of what to photograph, when, from what angle, and how to distribute the resulting image is as much an interpretation as any other form of making. This is an important aspect of image making to include in any discussion of power and production — intent.

As has been previously discussed, Sontag argues that textual accounts seem like a less deceptive way of distributing fractions of the world as it encourages mental imagery as opposed to visual depictions, which she notes provides most of the knowledge of how the past looked, and how far the present reaches (1977:2). This provides evidence to the idea that the author is less weary of textual accounts for their apparent transparency, whereas she is more aware of the possibility of negative intent with photography. Thus, it is arguable, though perhaps controversially, that Sontag is not weary of images themselves, but indeed the power of images being produced by those with certain privileged intents, such as journalists, for example, who have created an immense market for the steadily increasing flow of information about the agonies of war (Sontag 2003). Such as with war photography, the author questions awareness of suffering that is registered by cameras which flares up, is shared by many people, and fades from view (2003:17) and by considering the end result of incessant depiction of violence in the name of image making. Sontag has pointed out that images have the power to create and reinforce reality, especially when something like the suffering of war is photographed is shared to those who are elsewhere, following it as ‘news’ (2003:19). It is important to note that the author does not claim it is the images themselves that generate the power, but the actual act of the creation of the images. Thus the power to be weary of is not the images but the maker, the operator, the distributer of the reality captured. This is further emphasized considering that the act of looking, seeing, and absorbing imagery, however consciously, can contribute to the physical formation of the social structures of a viewer’s world (Morgan 1997). Sontag is indeed, and rightfully, weary of the power of images for their ability to convey the desires of the image makers, which can go on to alter the audience’s perceptions and constructions of their world. It is important to recognize the power of an image while understand that the power is socially, culturally, perhaps even politically, given to it (Wolff 2012). An image does not exist autonomously with power: it is imbued with power ascribed to it from its maker and from its viewers. Sontag, who reminds us that to simply photograph something is to confer and reaffirm its importance (1977:22), would understandably be weary of the mere possibilities of power this could bring, especially with an image in competition with text. Mitchell has argued that images want equal rights with text, seen as complex individuals occupying multiple identities, though not to be leveled with or turned into language (1996:82). The root of image production is inherently complex and multi-faceted, so it is easily conceivable that the subsequent visual texts produced would be, too. But the power to make someone feel, not feel, act, not act, to make something happen or not, the power that is exerted over viewers is not the fault of the images themselves, but of the image makers. Images are merely the catalyst or conductor. Our relationship with images, such as with other objects, is often emotional, and often retain the idea that images and objects are powerful in and of themselves — but it is important to note that this is not the same thing as believing the power exists within the image (Wolff 2012). The power that is perceived to be based in the image is not. This is why Sontag is rightly weary of the power of images — it is really the power of the producer embodied. As Sontag points out, “The photographer chooses oddity, chases it, frames it, develops it, titles it” (1977:27) and there is no point at which the image is autonomous from its maker.

At its forefront, this essay has been a critique of the power of images as a whole, touching upon differing debates inside and outside of the anthropological discipline. It has delved into detail, however, as to why they are so powerful, especially in comparison to reality and to textual accounts, and why writer Susan Sontag may be especially weary of them. By being critical of the power of images it is possible to understand the true nature of their uses within various disciplines and across a variety of fields. Film and photography have not endured a simple or easy path within the anthropological discipline in particular, but visual research, which has both academic and applied uses (Pink 2003) is increasingly valued in anthropology and beyond. Sontag has researched and written an extensive amounts on images, which was briefly chronicled at the beginning of this essay, along with photography and image making’s place within artistic and anthropological disciplines. Working with Sontag’s extensive body of work on images and on war, determining the origin and power of images was key to understanding where their influence and nefarious ideals could come from. While the author may be understandably weary of the power of images due to their pervasiveness and influence, it is important to note that the production and intent of such images are where the power originates and is affirmed.

The camera’s machinery allows us to see and record without fatigue as the memory of film replaces the notebook and ensures absolute and utterly powerful quotation of reality (Collier, Collier 1986), but it is only ever a portion or section of reality that has been decidedly copied by an individual maker. It is through the action of deciding what to make an image of, where, when, and most importantly, why, that the image itself gains its power. That is why this essay concludes with the decision that it is not merely the power of images that Sontag is weary of, but the power of image makers and all that they imbue into their imagery.

Collier, J., Collier, M. (1986) Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press

Edwards, E. (2009) Morton, C. (ed) Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd

Mead, M. (1995) Hockings, P. (ed.) ‘Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words’, Principles of Visual Anthropology De Gruyter. pp. 3–10

Mitchell, W. J. T. “What Do Pictures ‘Really’ Want?” October, vol. 77, pp. 71–82

Mitchell, W.J.T. (2005) What Do Pictures Really Want? Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Morgan, D. (1997) Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images, California: University of California Press

Pink, S. (2003) ‘Interdisciplinary agendas in visual research: re-situating visual anthropology’, Visual Studies, 18:2, pp. 179-192

Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography, New York: Picador

Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, New York: Penguin Books

Wolff, J. (2012) ‘After Cultural Theory: The Power of Images, the Lure of Immediacy’ Journal of Visual Culture, 11:1, pp. 3–19

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