Obscuring the Working Class

Abstract

This article interrogates community photography through the prism of class in the context of Northern Ireland. It is based on findings of an ethnographic study of Northern Irish archives that hold Troubles-era photographs. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of capital, the paper demonstrates how deeply entrenched ideas about class and artistic value shape access to archival photographs and information about their authorship. The author considers how one Northern Irish archive has taken an ambiguous approach to showing the work produced by these photographers in an effort to accrue social and economic capital in a difficult funding environment. While the work of working-class photographers is frequently exhibited, it is rarely shown without first being transformed through artistic interventions. As these photographs are appropriated into new artworks, the original image, and the authorship of working-class photographers, are obscured.