Introduction

Abstract

The introduction takes a vigorous stand against the dominant but narrow, art market definition of the photobook. It reviews the growth of the photobook market and the popularity of the word ‘photobook’, currently associated with photographer-driven, collectible, photographer’s books, and proposes instead to follow Howard Becker’s theoretical model of the ‘art world’. This shifts the focus away from the singular auteur and onto the collective nature of cultural production. The introduction argues that the photobook – whether art object or not – is a social object, and should be seen as the output of collectives, communities, networks or institutions. This perspective makes it possible to widen the definition, while still respecting the specificity that the photographic medium brings. The word ‘photobook’ is used in this volume as an umbrella term, embracing all photographically illustrated books and, most importantly, their texts. The introduction then explains how the individual chapters (which look both inside and outside the canon of anthologised photobooks) examine various notions of collective production, collective meaning and collective history. The case histories describe the fascinating origination contexts and processes, and so reveal the confluence of interests involved when photography is used as a mode of resistance to colonial exploitation and racial discrimination, or as a means to give visibility to feminist issues or vernacular culture.