I know for myself Spivak’s writing is my first time hearing the word subaltern thus I would like to provide some insight into what it is. The subaltern is a group of people in a society who are marginalized politically, socially, or geographically. The reason the subaltern are unable to have their voice be heard is these barriers. Back when India was colonized by Britain different regions of India were given new names split up into states. This separation acted as a way for the regions to now think for themselves so that they could survive within themselves. It became a lot harder for all the states to come together as one voice because they were now separate from each other. The subaltern really looks into the way colonialism was an issue for so long. This is kind of similar to the large amount of political tumultuousness we see in the U.S. today. There are so many states with differing ideas that we are not able to come together as one. This also relates to how minorities are not as capable of having their voices heard in the states.

Subaltern is the “lowest rank” in a society and are subjected to being othered constantly. The problem occurs when it is realized how important the indigenous elite within a civilization plays in this awful mistreatment. In a situation such as Britain’s colonization of India where there were Indian elite who remained in power and had a voice but were not willing to use it out of fear of losing that power. People who are wealthy are less willing to fight for the poor when they themselves have it good. Subaltern was also actively silenced through the use of epistemic violence which is the use of supposed superiority of knowledge, religion, social integration, etc. This is where use of gatekeeping to appear as if the ones in power have more insight into what is wrong and right. One example of this was the depiction of former Indian custom Sati as barbaric practice thus the nation as a whole requiring an overhaul. The main idea of the subaltern is that they are discredited and minimized so that they cannot speak. They are separated culturally, ideologically and regionally This is done as a tactic of control to keep the oppressors in power. The subaltern cannot speak because there is no podium.

C.A. Bayly (1988) Rallying Around the Subaltern, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 16:1, 110-120, DOI: 10.1080/03066158808438384

SIVARAMAKRISHNAN, K. (1995), Situating the Subaltern: History and Anthropology in the Subaltern Studies Project. Journal of Historical Sociology, 8: 395-429. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6443.1995.tb00173.x

Arturo Escobar (2001)  Culture sits in places: reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization. Political Geography, 20: 139-174 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0962-6298(00)00064-0

They say pictures are worth a thousand words. The site of one image sometimes gives a person a full story during any situation. When we look any kind of photograph what are they trying to interpret and what do they tell us. First, they connect us to our past they remind us of people, feelings and stories. Secondly, they help piece together information that is essential to life that is difficult to understand, Lastly, they give us a beginning and lasting impression that presents judgement. When we walk through historical museums, we see much history about our worlds past and how ended up in the present. It gives us an order of events of how things happen and the effect that it has on our history.

Now in the 21^st our history is recorded differently such as through social media. People can record anything from their touch screen phones and the whole world would be able to see it through a click of a button. Now with social websites such as Instagram, Facebook, and twitter people now see through someone’s else’s lens instead of their own. However, when we look at pictures, or social media, many people paint a picture of how they want us to see the story compared to how the story took place. Some people know how to create illusions that can trick the mind and the eyes to believe what ever is presented. In Regarding Pain for others she mentions “that there are many uses of the innumerable opportunities a modern life supplies for regarding—at a distance, through the medium of photography—other people’s pain” which I believe it means that people tend to use images as away to promote whatever is high demand of society without the understanding of the images.

It was during Christopher Columbus’s second voyage in 1493 that he came across several islands in the Caribbeans and the first Europeans entered the region. From then on, several of the islands, including Antigua, came under Spanish control. For over a century, there was little contest over the area- it was in the early 1600s that other European countries made their presence in the colonization of the region. England officially colonized Antigua in 1632, beginning centuries of colonial power dynamics and labor exploitation.

Map of Caribbean Islands 1680

The goal of Europeans in the Caribbean was to gain wealth. This hunger for wealth is what lead European colonizers into the African slave trade, bringing Africans against their will to provide the labor needed to support sugar plantations. In the years that slaves were used for labor in the Caribbeans, over 5 million people were enslaved. With the inhumane treatment of African people on the islands, a caste system existed with white people at the top, black people at the bottom, and mixed individuals falling in between. This Othering has continued throughout all of Antigua’s history.

Slaves cutting sugar cane in Antigua 1823

1834 saw the emancipation of slaves, quickly leading to economic downfall in Antigua. Newly freed individuals still did not have full financial freedom, and many stayed intertwined with their previous owners. Some even faced punishment if they did not continue to work for their former owners. 

British presence remained in Antigua into the 20th century. In 1939 Vere Cornwall Bird led the country’s first labor union. He pressured sugar workers to strike for higher wages. He became a part of the colonial legislature in the 1950s and when Antigua finally gained independence in 1981, Bird became the prime minister. Within the Antiguan Labor Party, however, was much corruption, and Antigua became a hub for criminal activity and money laundering. Fraud and drug trafficking were common within higher government officials. 

Sir Vere C. Bird

Tourism grew as the country’s primary economic producer. In 2011, tourism accounted for nearly 75% of GDP. Tourism is a primary topic addressed in Kincaid’s A Small Place. Especially emphasized is the fact that tourism has not led to much growth and development for the locals, but rather the expansion of the resorts themselves. The resorts and a few wealthy individuals have more access to the wealth in Antigua, rather than the country itself- this closely mimics the power dynamics of slave times, putting into question how much the country has really progressed. The focus on tourism has resulted in failing infrastructure, lacking education, and continued instability. 

Sources

Kaufman, Michael T. “Vere Bird, 89, Who Led Antigua to Freedom.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 June 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/30/world/vere-bird-89-who-led-antigua-to-freedom.html. 

Lambert, David. “An Introduction to the Caribbean, Empire and Slavery.” British Library, 16 Nov. 2017, https://www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/an-introduction-to-the-caribbean-empire-and-slavery. 

Momsen, Janet D., et al. “History of Antigua and Barbuda.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/place/Antigua-and-Barbuda/History. 

Owuor, Sophy. “What Are the Biggest Industries in Antigua and Barbuda?” WorldAtlas, WorldAtlas, 16 Sept. 2019, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-biggest-industries-in-antigua-and-barbuda.html. 

Image Sources

“Cutting the Sugar Cain.” The British Library, https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/carviewsvirtex/persjour/sugarcane/012zzz0001786c9u00004000.html. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021.

“The Western Ilands 1680.” The New York Public Library, 2015, https://live-cdn-www.nypl.org/s3fs-public/styles/sidebar_square/public/ca_c_0.jpg?itok=8XRDkATd. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021.

“Sir Vere C. Bird.” South Florida Caribbean News, 21 Jan. 2020, https://sflcn.com/in-search-of-inspiration-sir-vere-c-bird/. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021.

The growth of media in the last century has played an integral role in shaping our beliefs, to a fault in many ways. In Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, she examines the effects of photography on public sentiment, specifically war imagery. The popular adage “A picture is worth a thousand words”, although quite cliché, is embodied throughout her writing. The notion that one picture can convey complex and sometimes multiple ideas that mere words cannot. This presentation briefly explores the origins of professional wartime photography, specifically during the Spanish Civil War, and mentions some key photographers who would pave the way for professional photography moving forward into World War II and beyond.

SPAIN. November 7th, 1938. Near Fraga, the Aragon front. Loyalist troops during an offensive on the Rio Segre.

The Spanish Civil War was a major event in Spanish and European history, introducing some of the major ideological conflict that would spread across Europe as the catalyst for World War II. Apart from being a major historical event, the Spanish Civil War would be the ground-zero for professional photography on the front lines of military combat. As Sontag states in an article in the New Yorker (December 9 2002), “the Spanish Civil War was the first war to be witnessed (‘covered’) in the modern sense: by a corps of professional photographers at the lines of military engagement and in the towns under bombardment, whose work was immediately seen in newspapers and magazines in Spain and abroad.” These photographers were present from the initial uprisings in 1936 to the collapse of the Republican government in 1939, putting themselves at risk on the front lines to disseminate these dramatic images around the world.

SPAIN. Cordoba front. Early September, 1936. Three Loyalist militiamen in a gully aiming rifles.

Photographer Robert Capa introduced in Picture Post as “the greatest war photographer in the world” captured arguably one of the most iconic photographs of the century titled “Death of a Loyalist Militiaman”. Robert Whelan in “Roberta Capa in Spain”, published by Aperture interprets the image stating, “The photograph is an overwhelmingly powerful statement of the human existential dilemma, as the solitary man is struck down by an unseen enemy, as if by Fate itself…the photograph is a haunting symbol of all the Republican soldiers who died in the war, and of Republican Spain itself, flinging itself bravely forward and being struck down.” Capa would later photograph some of the most iconic and graphic images of D-Day landings on Omaha Beach. French magazine Regards, in a time where French publications gave no credit to photographers, stated that it “sent the one of its most qualified and audacious photographers to the Spanish capital.” Photographers Gerda Taro (partner of Capa) and David Seymour are also often cited as the primary representatives of war photography in that era.

SPAIN. Cerro Muriano, Cordoba front. September 5th, 1936. Republican militiaman (Federico BORRELL GARCIA) at the moment of death. (“The Falling Soldier”).

The focus early on in photojournalism was to emphasize photographs as truthful objective representations, but war propaganda would soon challenge this philosophy. Propaganda posters would be deployed during the Spanish Civil War by Nationalists and Republicans, displaying images that would recruit people to their cause. Caroline Brothers notes “whether to intervene was a question theoretically tied to public opinion, at least in the foreign democracies, and since this opinion was informed at least as much by images as by text, the press photographs of the Spanish Civil War can be understood as weapons rather than simple illustrations.” These images which may have been seen as an artform in the early days of wartime photography, would soon be weaponized to challenge public opinion about war.

Sources:

“Robert Capa: Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936-Probably Printed in the 1930s or Early 1940s).” Artsy, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-capa-death-of-a-loyalist-soldier.

Photojournalism during the Spanish Civil War, https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/swphotojournalism/.

“Robert Capa and the Spanish Civil War: Magnum Photos Magnum Photos.” Magnum Photos, https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/conflict/robert-capa-spanish-civil-war/.

Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the Pain of Others” discusses how violent images, especially those of war, have influenced personal beliefs through secondhand illustrations of suffering while simultaneously dividing the gap of consciousness between victims and their perpetrator. The development of efficient cameras and technology has undoubtably driven the increase in public exposure to objectively real scenes of violence, yet Sontag argues that photography’s intent to unite often conflicts with its actual impact.

Given the accessible nature of cameras in phones or other portable devices, exposure to harmful videos and film are increasingly common throughout news networks and outlets. An article by Comunicar utilizes the Boomerang effect – a term used in social psychology to describe circumstances where an individual adapts the opposite attitude or behavior that was otherwise targeted to prevent or correct – to explain the unintended consequences of violent imagery. The Boomerang effect relates to Sontag’s essay as it desensitizes the severity and frequency of violence due to reduction in emotional responses after the initial viewing (Brandle et al. 2011). Ultimately, this encourages the spectator to ignore or avoid further exposures as well as avoidance of the rooted issue.

Alternatively, in a Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law article, the authors’ findings suggest that as frequency of exposure to violent media increases, moral disengagement follows and heightens aggressive thoughts, attitudes and behaviors (Richmond and Wilson 2008). The imitation effect, for example, categorizes the tendency for humans to repeat observed behavior by other respected members within their in-group. While mass violence, like that of war, is more difficult to replicate in daily life, the spectator may nonetheless believe the actions or power demonstrated resulted in personal gain. Likewise, when members of similar social identities are exposed to other members engaging in violent behavior towards an individual with a separate social identity, the in-group member perceives this conduct as correct behavior and loses their sense of moral connection (Keltner and Robinson 1996)(Richmond and Wilson 2008).

These concepts have been used to understand extremism and bias, as studies examining social misperception report those who are in power are less likely to support social (hierarchal) change and are more biased in their own judgements and stereotypes, whereas those with lower power are more likely to support systemic change and prioritize individualism as well as others’ emotional needs (Keltner and Robinson 1996). In conclusion, graphic imagery has been proven to not invoke a singular, universal response in the spectator and is dependent on the viewer’s social identity and status.

Sources:

Brändle-Señán, Gaspar, et al. “The Risk of Emergence of Boomerang Effect in Communication Against Violence.” Comunicar, vol. 19, no. 37, 2011, pp. 161–168., https://doi.org/10.3916/c37-2011-03-08.

http://eprints.rclis.org/17291/1/en161-168.pdf

Keltner, Dacher, and Robert J. Robinson. “Extremism, Power, and the Imagined Basis of Social Conflict.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 5, no. 4, 1996, pp. 101–105., https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.ep11452765.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/dacherkeltner/docs/keltner.robinson.currentdirections.1996.pdf

Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag – Monoskop.org. https://monoskop.org/images/a/a6/Sontag_Susan_2003_Regarding_the_Pain_of_Others.pdf.

https://monoskop.org/images/a/a6/Sontag_Susan_2003_Regarding_the_Pain_of_Others.pdf

Richmond, Jill, and J. Clare Wilson. “Are Graphic Media Violence, Aggression and Moral Disengagement Related.” Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, vol. 15, no. 2, 2008, pp. 350–357. HeinOnline, EBSCOhost, https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edshol&AN=edshol.hein.journals.psylaw15.34&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed 28 Nov. 2021.

https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=e62565f8-a424-4d52-ae0d-a93c74fb66ce%40sdc-v-sessmgr01