The Civil Contract of Photography

by Ariella Azoulay, Rela Mazali (Translator), Ruvik Danieli (Translator)

Overview

In this groundbreaking work, Ariella Azoulay thoroughly revises our understanding of the ethical status of photography. It must, she insists, be understood in its inseparability from the many catastrophes of recent history. She argues that photography is a particular set of relations between individuals and the powers that govern them and, at the same time, a form of relations among equals that constrains that power. Anyone, even a stateless person, who addresses others through photographs or occupies the position of a photograph’s addressee, is or can become a member of the citizenry of photography.

The crucial arguments of the book concern two groups that have been rendered invisible by their state of exception: the Palestinian noncitizens of Israel and women in Western societies. Azoulay’s leading question is: Under what legal, political, or cultural conditions does it become possible to see and show disaster that befalls those with flawed citizenship in a state of exception? The Civil Contract of Photography is an essential work for anyone seeking to understand the disasters of recent history and the consequences of how they and their victims are represented.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781890951894
Publisher:	Zone Books
Publication date:	12/18/2012
Series:	Zone Books
Pages:	586
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ariella is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University and the author of Death's Showcase: the Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy (MIT Press).

What People are Saying About This

Thomas Keenan

"Ariella Azoulay makes a simple and profound claim. Every photograph bears the traces of the encounter between the photographer and the photographed, and neither party can ultimately control that inscription nor determine what happens to those traces. The photograph, she tells us, fixes nothing and belongs to no one.
This untethering of photography from responsibility, at least in its traditional sense, allows her to approach the ethics and politics specific to photography in a completely new way. Even or especially when it is a photograph of a crime or an injustice, a photograph is more than evidence. It imposes another sort of obligation on us, to address and readdress it in a way that challenges what it shows of our life together. Azoulay's breathtaking book finally demands nothing less of us than to reimagine how, in the age of the photograph, we might become citizens again."--- Thomas Keenan, Human Rights Program, Bard College

Endorsement

Ariella Azoulay makes a simple and profound claim. Every photograph bears the traces of the encounter between the photographer and the photographed, and neither party can ultimately control that inscription nor determine what happens to those traces. The photograph, she tells us, fixes nothing and belongs to no one. This untethering of photography from responsibility, at least in its traditional sense, allows her to approach the ethics and politics specific to photography in a completely new way. Even or especially when it is a photograph of a crime or an injustice, a photograph is more than evidence. It imposes another sort of obligation on us, to address and readdress it in a way that challenges what it shows of our life together. Azoulay's breathtaking book finally demands nothing less of us than to reimagine how, in the age of the photograph, we might become citizens again.

—Thomas Keenan, Human Rights Program, Bard College

From the Publisher

Ariella Azoulay makes a simple and profound claim. Every photograph bears the traces of the encounter between the photographer and the photographed, and neither party can ultimately control that inscription nor determine what happens to those traces. The photograph, she tells us, fixes nothing and belongs to no one. This untethering of photography from responsibility, at least in its traditional sense, allows her to approach the ethics and politics specific to photography in a completely new way. Even or especially when it is a photograph of a crime or an injustice, a photograph is more than evidence. It imposes another sort of obligation on us, to address and readdress it in a way that challenges what it shows of our life together. Azoulay's breathtaking book finally demands nothing less of us than to reimagine how, in the age of the photograph, we might become citizens again.

—Thomas Keenan, Human Rights Program, Bard College

Editorial Reviews

... this is a significant, deeply moral book that should undercut complacent thinking. Azoulay's renewal of cultural attention to the state and her view of photography that requires us to dispute prevailing interpretations of evidence must surely be welcomed as we are, once again, thrown headlong back to reality.

—Steve Edwards, Times Higher Education

Reviews

... this is a significant, deeply moral book that should undercut complacent thinking. Azoulay's renewal of cultural attention to the state and her view of photography that requires us to dispute prevailing interpretations of evidence must surely be welcomed as we are, once again, thrown headlong back to reality.

Times Higher Education - Steve Edwards

... Azoulay's central themes—state violence, violations of human rights, and the nature and potential of photographic witness—are as relevant to our own political circumstances as they are to hers.

Abigail Solomon

". . . nothing less than a wholesale restatement of the contemporary political stakes of the image. . . ."—-Brian Dillon, Art Review

"Azoulay’s ethical and political interrogation of her circumstances as an Israeli citizen should be taken as a challenge to produce our own accounting."—-Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Art in America

"[T]his is a significant, deeply moral book that should undercut complacent thinking. Azoulay’s renewal of cultural attention to the state and her view of photography that requires us to dispute prevailing interpretations of evidence must surely be welcomed as we are, once again, thrown headlong back to reality."—-Steve Edwards, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Azoulay…is not interested in viewers’ emotional responses to images of suffering. It’s not empathy she’s after; she wants action. Images can transform the world, she argues, and the only reason they haven’t yet is because we don’t know how to look at them. The problem isn’t images; it’s us….For many years, I said I didn’t know what to do when I encountered an image of another person in pain or dying or already dead. After reading Azoulay, I could no longer claim that I didn’t know what to do. She had explained the work in detail. The question for me now is whether I am up to the task."—-Sarah Sentilles, The New Yorker

From the Publisher