Revolt at the source: the black radical tradition in the social documentary photography of Omar Badsha and Nadine Hutton

Abstract

The social documentary photography of Omar Badsha (b. 1945) and Nadine Hutton (b. 1977) upends ideas about who has been writing the history of South Africa and in what genres. Their cross-generational dialogue and commitment to sharing photography as a means of social commentary not only constitutes a historical tradition, but it also emerges out of and is an expression of the black radical tradition. By drawing on interviews with Badsha and Hutton as well as an analysis of their work, this essay demonstrates how the black radical tradition works as a radical philosophy of history in practice: defying post-raciality, depoliticization of art, and amplifying culture as a site of work and political mobilization. Theoretical insights from Cedric Robinson's scholarship on marronage, the origins of the black radical tradition and its cosmology, the renegade black intelligentsia, and the making of racial regimes place Badsha and Hutton in the black radical tradition.