Decolonizing the look, viewing photographic images of the Civil Rights movement

grantor: University of TorontoDocumentary photography of the Civil Rights movement is currently being re-circulated in films, books, museums, gallery exhibits, the popular media and commercial advertising. These photographs commemorate a time of struggle over race, rights and significant moments in the African American struggle for freedom. This thesis examines how it might be possible to view these photographs through a pedagogy of respect and solidarity. The thesis uses a case study approach to viewing three images of the Civil Rights movement. Using principles of anti-racist and feminist theory, I ask how to engage with these images. The first chapter situates the look within the social history of photography in order to explore some of the structures which influence engagements with photographic images. Each of the subsequent viewing chapters is organised as a series of looks. Through these progressive looks, my viewing practices are exposed as they engage with historical material related to the struggle for liberation that the photograph commemorates. The process of decolonizing the look addresses complex and interrelated forms of meaning making because the look is situated within the psychic dynamic between the gaze and the screen and within the field of social relations. I use a theory of witnessing to direct certain choices regarding the kinds of histories that engage my look. I use autobiography to uncover the ways my look resists the learning that these testimonies and histories provide? One important aspect of building toward a pedagogy of respect and solidarity is the turning of my research look onto images closely related to my own social identity before viewing across racial boundaries. The purpose is to shift the grounds of psychic and social understanding that shape my socially located look I view first an image of Ms. Rita Schwerner who struggled against white supremacy and segregation, and second an image of a KKK woman. The third image is of Ms. Elizabeth Eckford one of the nine African American students who desegregated a high school in Little Rock Arkansas. The three case studies together form a theory and praxis for a pedagogy of solidarity and respect.Ph.D