Dignity vs. Humanity
‘Protecting’ disaster victims’ dignity is barking up the wrong tree.
February 2008 By Jeff BrooksRobina died two weeks after I met her. She lived in Uganda, on an island in Lake Victoria that at the time was near ground zero of the AIDS epidemic. She was one of the last living people between the ages of 17 and 60.
If I showed you a photo, you’d see a hollow-eyed, emaciated woman with a sad face and ragged clothes, sitting on a mat in a hut with a dirt floor and holes in the walls.
Her husband had died a few weeks earlier. At that time, in that place, AIDS was an automatic and swift death sentence. Robina knew, the moment he started showing symptoms of AIDS, that she was next.
Her greatest fear, she told me, wasn’t her coming death, but what was ahead for her six young children. Robina’s frail, elderly mother had agreed to care for them. But how could she possibly provide for so many?
Before I left Robina’s home, she reached up and gave me her hand. It was cool to the touch. She smiled — past her pain, past her worry — an unbelievably gracious smile for me, the pale stranger who randomly showed up at her deathbed one day.
I’ve never met royalty. But I imagine what you feel is like what I experienced that day with Robina: mixed awe and awkwardness. A sense of the presence of greatness. Knowing it’s a moment you’ll carry close for the rest of your life.
Protecting Robina?
I’m telling you about Robina because there’s a movement afoot to protect people like her. Not so much from poverty or disease — but from assaults on their dignity. Assaults like the one I’ve just committed by sharing these things with you.
That’s right. There are folks in the international relief and development sector who’d say I’ve undermined Robina’s dignity by revealing details about her situation. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is like saying looking at the ocean undermines its wetness.
“Dignity” gets an official stamp of approval in a document called the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief. This mostly laudable document says, “We shall portray an objective image of the disaster situation where the capacities and aspirations of disaster victims are highlighted, and not just their vulnerabilities and fears.”
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"There is no us and them. There?s just us."
Amen brother!
Thanks for writing this. While I think you've made some excellent points (esp. the 'White Man's Burden' thing -- the idea that in protecting someone's dignity, we're still the good and noble white angels protecting the supposedly helpless [the full irony of that had never hit me until now]), I also wish that you would have addressed the importance of context.
It's not the photo of someone with their hand out that can rob someone of their dignity (although i agree that some people believe that), but the accompanying words and messages. What's important, and powerful, is the context within which that image is used (used...used).
I believe that a photo of Robina, or anyone else, could be used by nonprofit orgs who have woven into their organizational DNA, "the racist belief that we [need] to go out there and save the hapless and benighted 'natives' who [lack] their own resources." If an organization doesn't operate within the proper mindset, what would otherwise be a fine, dignified image could become something that would embarrass or degrade the subject.
As a "development photographer," I care deeply about how my images are used. Of course, I don't have too much control over that beyond communicating my values to those who hire me.
To sum up, it's quite refreshing to read such a well-thought-out, well-expressed article on a topic that hasn't seen much fresh insight. So thanks for that!! I agree with so much of what you said, and will think about it as I travel and work and shoot.
Story is a wonderful tool for building a bridges between the people we support and those who might help if they understood. On the other hand, there is a need to craft the story in a way that the person you are portraying--or even a whole class of people--doesn't get crushed by the hyperbole.
Sharing individual stories, even lots of them should be fine. Implying that the adults involved are children, loading on the generalizations and phrases that imply that the people involved ARE less, rather than HAVE less is not fine. The images you create with feeling last long beyond any campaign.
All or Nothing approaches rarely satisfy. It is important to make people feel for others--for fundraising and beyond. It is also important to realize that making people feel is a very powerful tool and needs to be used conscientiously (ie, with conscience.)