Looking Together as Method

Abstract

AbstractBetween 1896 and 1908, over 4300 Ottoman Armenians emigrated abroad through terk‐i tabiiyet, an expatriation process that required emigrants never return to the empire. A key step in this process was sitting for a photograph. Using Ottoman Armenian expatriation photographs as an example, this article details “looking together” as a method for working ethnographically with photographs. It details three moments in time and three kinds of time to show how looking together yielded an understanding of how the state intended these photographs to function and how individuals conscripted these portraits of unbelonging into their own projects of belonging.