Mary Ellen Mark's Representation Of
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STANDING ON FALKLAND ROAD, SITTING IN AMERICA: MARY ELLEN MARK’S REPRESENTATION OF THE INDIAN OTHER _______________________________________________________________________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by ELIZABETH A. LANCE Dr. Berkley Hudson, Thesis Committee Chair DECEMBER 2011 The undersigned, appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled STANDING ON FALKLAND ROAD, SITTING IN AMERICA: MARY ELLEN MARK’S REPRESENTATION OF THE INDIAN OTHER presented by Elizabeth A. Lance, a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Berkley Hudson Professor Yong Volz Professor David Rees Professor Kristin Schwain DEDICATION As with any pursuit I have ever undertaken in my life, whether academic or professional, my parents Zoe and Charles Lance have provided constant support, for which I thank them sincerely. And to my dear friend Maggie Berglund, thank you for believing I could actually get this thing done. I did it. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The document that follows is an extension of work that I began in the first semester of my master’s program in Dr. Berkley Hudson’s Literature of Journalism class. I thank him first for indulging my interest in documentary photography in a literature course, and second for encouraging me to develop my skills of visual analysis. I also thank him for his patience, guidance, and support as the chair of my thesis committee. I think the stagecoach made it to Sedalia. The dedicated faculty members that served on my committee are central not only to the quality of this thesis, but also indicative of the quality of graduate education available to me at the University of Missouri. Dr. Yong Volz has inspired me with her intelligence, and taught me how to bring academic rigor into my intellectual work. David Rees welcomed me into the Missouri photojournalism tradition with open arms over four years ago and has continued to make me feel at home on the first floor of Lee Hills Hall, most recently by providing me with a desk in the photo bunker. Finally, Dr. Kristin Schwain has supported me not only with her expert insight into visual culture and analysis, but also with her friendship. I would like to extend appreciation to the Duffy Fund for providing financial support to travel to New York City in April 2011 to interview Mary Ellen Mark in person. This was a phenomenal opportunity that would not have otherwise been possible. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. ii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES...............................................................................................................v ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... vi Chapter PREFACE..................................................................................................................1 1. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................3 Purpose of Study Justification Organization of Study 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.......................10 Falkland Road Mary Ellen Mark: A Groundbreaker A Woman’s Way of Seeing Documentary Photography and Visual Journalism Photographic Reality Visual Representations of the Other The Intersection of Gazes Research Questions Theory of Visual Rhetoric Cultural Studies Theory Aesthetics Theory iii 3. METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................32 Research Goals Data Selection Ethnographic Content Analysis Coding Protocol Textual Analysis Interview Additional Analysis Validity Limitations 4. CONSIDERING THE TEXT ..................................................................................47 Results of Ethnographic Content Analysis Textual Analysis “Putla, a thirteen-year-old prostitute, comes from a small village.” Twelve-year-old Lata lying in bed (uncaptioned) “Cages on Falkland Road at night” The ragpicker with three women on the threshold (uncaptioned) Male client with bidi and two girls (uncaptioned) 5. CONSIDERING THE CONTEXT..........................................................................71 Dominant Representations of the Indian Other Reinforcing and Undermining the Dominant Representations Population Density Authenticity, Tradition, and Religiosity iv The Gaze Gendered Space 6. CONCLUSION: SUBVERTING THE DOMINANT REPRESENTATIONS.......85 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research Documentary Photography and Social Change APPENDIX A: LIST OF MAGAZINES USED FOR COMPARATIVE STUDY ..........91 APPENDIX B: CODEBOOK FOR ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTENT ANALYSIS ..........92 APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW GUIDE ..............................................................................94 APPENDIX D: TRANSCRIPT OF APRIL 12, 2011 INTERVIEW ................................96 APPENDIX E: TRANSCRIPT OF APRIL 13, 2011 INTERVIEW...............................115 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................132 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. The cover of Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay (1981)...........................................3 2. “A madam of one of the more expensive houses with her girls.” .................................12 3. “Exposing a stool pigeon for the Gestapo in a displaced persons camp.”.....................27 4. Uncaptioned of Lata lying in bed. .................................................................................63 5. “Cages on Falkland Road at night.”...............................................................................66 6. Uncaptioned of ragpicker with three women on the threshold......................................67 7. Uncaptioned of male client with bidi and two girls.......................................................69 8. National Geographic cover, March 1978 ......................................................................73 9. “The bride ritually laments her departure from her home village.”...............................74 10. “The majority of Sikhs live in the Indian state of Punjab …”.....................................74 11. “To help control crowds waiting to buy tickets at the movie theaters …”..................75 12. “Many of the women come from the city of Mysore …”............................................77 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Technical attributes of photographic composition.........................................................48 2. The environment of the photographs .............................................................................52 3. The subjects of the images.............................................................................................56 4. Captions in the images...................................................................................................60 vii STANDING ON FALKLAND ROAD, SITTING IN AMERICA: MARY ELLEN MARK’S REPRESENTATION OF THE INDIAN OTHER Elizabeth A. Lance Dr. Berkley Hudson, Thesis Supervisor ABSTRACT This study examines the documentary photographic book Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay by American photographer Mary Ellen Mark to identify the specific ways Mark both undermines and reinforces the dominant representations of the Indian Other in contemporary American documentary photography. By considering the photographic reality, the intersection of gazes, and a woman’s way of seeing, this study employs ethnographic content analysis, textual analysis, and interview to support the argument that Mark’s gender is instrumental in allowing her to undermine those dominant representations. This study makes a contribution to the scholarship on representations of the Indian Other and the role gender plays in American documentary photography. viii PREFACE I first lived in South Asia when I participated in the University of Wisconsin’s College Year in Nepal program as an undergraduate in 1998-1999. After that initial ten months living in Kathmandu and traveling throughout the subcontinent, I returned a second time, to live in Nepal again from 2001 to 2003. Though I never visited Mumbai, I as able to travel fairly extensively in India, visiting Kolkata, Darjeeling, and Kalimpong in West Bengal, Varanasi and Delhi in Uttar Pradesh, and various cities in Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Goa. Living in South Asia for all of this time made me more aware of gender than I ever had been growing up in the United States, and I began to think more about various manifestations of gender performance in South Asia. I was awarded a U.S. Student Fulbright Fellowship to return to Nepal again in 2008-09 to work on a documentary photography project on beauty and body image among young Nepali women, and it was during this time I was first introduced to Mary Ellen Mark’s Falkland Road. I was just a few months into my project, and my advisor Carroll Dunham began pulling photography books of her shelves to show me how other photographers address gender and South Asia in their work. I remember the first time I looked at the cover photograph of Falkland Road