Photography and Sociology: an Exercise in Serendipity
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Eldridge, Alison (2015) Photography and sociology: an exercise in serendipity. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/7392/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIOLOGY: AN EXERCISE IN SERENDIPITY Alison Eldridge Submission for PhD (by research) University of Glasgow History of Art June 2015 c. Alison Eldridge June 2015 1 TABL E OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Photography and Sociology: An exercise in serendipity.................6 Introduction.....................................................................................7 Bourdieu in Algeria.........................................................................10 Photography and Sociology: Bourdieu’s contribution....................16 Photography: Why a Middle-Brow Art? ......................................26 Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’: Values and Limitations...................31 The Field of Photographic Production............................................35 Why War? ......................................................................................44 On Theory and Practice: photography, an exercise in serendipity..48 Chapter 2: Words and Pictures..........................................................................55 The Photograph and the Essay: Towards a methodology................57 The Changing Status of the Essay...................................................63 Language and Power........................................................................66 The ‘work’ of Raymond Williams...................................................74 Private Troubles: Public Issues........................................................79 Chapter 3: Photography: Between Art and Science..........................................82 Photography: The Magic System....................................................83 Photography: Towards a Culture in Common................................106 2 Chapter 4: Working out the Idea of Documentary: A slow reach for control..112 Martha Rosler: The Critique of Documentary................................123 Situating Rosler’s Critique..............................................................136 Martha Rosler: The Bowery...........................................................142 Chapter 5: Reframing Martha Rosler...............................................................154 Ambiguity and Ambivalence.........................................................159 Chapter 6: Photojournalism: Dreadful things bring Dreadful Pictures............177 Consider War..................................................................................182 Consider Violence...........................................................................184 “A War of Darkness against Light”................................................186 Press Photography: The Showmanship of War..............................190 Seeing Suffering Strategically........................................................197 Light and Time: What do we get to see as well as never see.........202 Rosler and Sontag: Assumptions and misrepresentations..............206 Contemporary structures of feeling; contemporary abstractions....213 In, Around and Afterthoughts (on photojournalism)......................223 Chapter 7: Complicity, Accountability, Affect.................................................232 An Empirical Example (1)..............................................................236 An Empirical Example (2)..............................................................240 An Empirical Example (3)..............................................................248 3 Citizen Journalism..........................................................................251 Perpetrator Photography.................................................................255 Beyond Pornography: Masculinity and the Military......................264 Peace and Conflict: Complex interconnections..............................269 Made You Look: Made You Stare..................................................275 Production, Reproduction, Reformation.........................................285 Chapter 8: Reviewing Painful Images: Revision and Reflection.....................291 The Art of Looking Away..............................................................294 Accessing the Human: Self and Other............................................314 Chapter 9: Fine Art Photography and Photojournalism...................................325 Art, Money and the Alchemical Convergence of Capitals..............337 Photography Comes In From the Cold............................................342 From Public Issues to Private Troubles...........................................346 Chapter 10: Documentary Photography: Timeliness and Lateness..................357 Simon Norfolk: Aesthetics and Politics.........................................371 The Politics of Silence...................................................................381 Chapter 11: Photography and Sociology: Breaking the Silence of Events......389 Putting the Craftsman to Work.....................................................392 Bibliography.....................................................................................................399 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are firstly due to my supervisors, Professor David Hopkins (History of Art) and Professor Bridget Fowler (Sociology) at Glasgow University for their counsel and support, both academically and personally. I am grateful also to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my study. Gratitude is also extended to Karl Magee at Stirling University and to staff at the Imperial War Museum, London for archive assistance. The support of family and friends has been an abiding source of strength; John Eldridge and Christine Reid have been tireless cheerleaders. Colleagues in sociology on level 10 of the Adam Smith Building have renewed my energy many times; firstly with helpful conversation and secondly, but no less helpfully, with a good supply of biscuits and tissues; Olive Bredin, thank you too. However, Alan Hinshelwood, Mollie Hinshelwood and Finn Hinshelwood deserve special mention – they have been living with this patiently for more years then they may wish to remember, and mostly, with good humour. Mollie, thank you especially for your computer skills that kept me organised! Finally, but not least, I continue to remember Gillian Morag March (1975-2013) (I have a photograph...) 5 PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIOLOGY: AN EXERCISE IN SERENDIPITY Camera Sculpture by Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs “If your pictures are not good enough, you aren’t reading enough”1 “The camera was invented in 1839. August Comte was just finishing his Cours de Philosophie Positive. Positivism and the camera and sociology grew up together. What sustained them all as practices was the belief that observable, quantifiable facts, recorded by scientists and experts, would one day offer man such a total knowledge about nature and society that he would be able to order them both. Precision would replace metaphysics, planning would resolve social conflicts, truth would replace subjectivity, and all that was dark and hidden in the soul would be illuminated by empirical knowledge. Comte wrote that theoretically nothing need remain unknown to man, except perhaps the origin of the stars! Since then, cameras have photographed even more than the formation of stars. And photographers now supply us with more facts every month than the eighteenth century Encyclopaedists dreamt of in their whole project”.2 1 Tod Papageorge cited in Broomberg, A and Chanarin , O : Unconcerned But Not Indifferent; http;//foto.8com/new/blog/337 2 Berger J and Mohr J (1982) Another Way of Telling; Writers and Readers Co-operative Publishing Society Ltd p99 6 Introduction As John Berger and Jean Mohr have thoughtfully pointed out, sociology and photography emerged at the same time and have since, grown up beside each other. In this thesis, I want to consider what the practises of photography and sociology have to offer each other, as mutually beneficial modes of social, cultural and aesthetic critique that facilitate an increased understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. Before offering an overview of Pierre Bourdieu’s demonstration of what he saw as a useful relationship between photography and sociology3, I will begin by reflecting on Bourdieu’s own photographic practice in Algeria during the 1950s. Bourdieu’s experience in Algeria had an important effect on his intellectual development, his achievements as a sociologist, and most specifically towards his analysis of cultural production as existing within a field of power.4 A reflexive approach that considers the relationship between history and biography, the empirical and the theoretical is made explicit in Bourdieu’s account of his time in French-occupied Algeria during the late 1950s. Bourdieu’s case raises sharp questions about the connections that can be made between lived