Co-photographing in North-western Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

The argument in this article, which starts from the assertion that anthropological research is always dependent on cross-cultural collaboration – whether acknowledged or not – is based on my experience from north-western Tigray, North-Ethiopia as a photographic artist and photographing anthropologist. The photographic portraits that resulted from Tigrayan people taking control over their own self-representation in a process of “co-photographing” made me “see” the subtle socio-cultural dynamics of layering communication mediated through exposure and containment, visibility and invisibility. My interpretation of their self-assertive strategy in the photographic situation resonates with Kiven Strohm’s (2012) emphasis on responding to the research participants’ assertion or affirmation of equality in cross-cultural collaborative research relationships as opposed to presuming inequality. However, Western ethical guidelines that require the anonymization of participants, and which makes it difficult to acknowledge people’s contributions to our research, reaffirm, rather than challenge this presumed inequality between the researcher and the researched.