Ethical and collaborative entanglements in creative co-production: photography and the politics of representation

This text was written with the aim of contributing to a wider discourse around voices for change, in the context of social justice. This seemingly straightforward premise becomes complex when it is photography that is speaking. Social justice activism must of course centralise the ‘whose voice?’question, but when mediated through a photographic representation this question becomes even more urgent. In this chapter I condense some aspects of photography’s past, considering the role of the documentary photographic image in the construction of racist and biased worldviews. I highlight that the substrate of imperialist bias, inscribed into photography in those early days, remained intrinsic to what became known as social documentary in the twentieth century. I foreground the shifts in twenty- first- century critical thinking that held photographic practice up to scrutiny and highlight some of those key critiques. Finally, I consider the impact that these critiques have had on the outputs of socially engaged documentary practice and offer blueprints from recent photographic projects in the UK, reflecting on the ways that photography may still be a useful and impactful tool for amplifying voices for change in the future.