Att se empatiskt – Samtida fotografiers möte med globaliserade rörelser, samspel och konflikter

Abstract

This article takes a selection of works of contemporary photography as starting points in a discussion about globalised movements, connections, and conflicts. The aim of the article is two-fold; first, to bring out and analyze how contemporary photography today finds new strategies with which to engage with aspects of the phenomenon of globalisation, and second, to contribute to a beginning tendency to broaden the theory of photography in order to include the different and often contrasting roles that photography plays in a globalised world. In order to achieve the latter, the discussion makes use of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories of incarnated knowledge, Jill Bennett’s thinking on empathic vision, and Laura Marks’ elaborations on unfolding the image. With the help of these theories, the further aim of the discussion is to suggest that new strategies in contemporary photography have the potential for opening up new kinds of understandings of the politically and affectively charged places and situations that they engage with; understandings which are not gained from the image’s (in-)capacity to represent, but rather from its ability to create affective encounters in relation to historical and contemporary events.