Militancy from the Margins in Brazil

Abstract

This article discusses some aspects of the political commitment visible in the lives and work of two female photographers in Brazil: Claudia Andujar and Nair Benedicto. It analyses two photographic series that were sent by these photographers to the Latin American Photography Colloquia in 1978 and 1981: Andujar’s work with the Yanomamis, the Amazonian Indigenous people; and Benedicto’s work with young offenders incarcerated in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Ribeirão Preto. For both photographers, training their lenses on some of the most marginalised sectors of Brazilian society at that moment also meant engaging politically with the military dictatorship. However, in both cases their political engagement was not limited to photography; it transcended to social and political militancy.