Globalization and the Politics of Photographic Representation: Essentializing the Moments of Agony

Abstract

Prima facie photographic representations are reproducing reality, though in most of the cases they are artificially created and subjectively interpreted. Focusing on photography as a form of visual representation, the article argues that globalization as a process accelerates this agenda of photography. This article aims at exploring the cultural penetration of globalization through contemporary visual bombardments. The modern capitalist intervention has made globalization even more pregnable to the grassroots of everyday life. In this way, globalization creates stereotypical visual and cultural representations of the feminized societies. People belonging to these societies not only remain at the fringes but also are sympathized from an orientalist perspective. Two-fold questions remain relevant here. First, how does the politics of essentialization take place through photographic representation of feminized societies? Second, how is globalization at work for the creation of these visual images in a manner that in turn strengthens its own bio-power? The article, thus, engages in the exposition of the photographic representation by connecting its theoretical implications with the larger picture of globalization. It picks up some of the widely circulated photographs of the ‘backward’ Third World countries around the world as illustrative instances and shows how these photographs capture the phenomenon of essentialization reflecting a common narrative of suffering.