After eight years work that included the Imaging Famine project, my PhD thesis, which examines the visual discourse of photojournalism and explores its role in constructing the imagined geography of Africa, is now available online.
The thesis investigates how photographic illustrations of Africa play a role in constructing knowledge of the continent for mainstream UK audiences. It undertakes this in terms of the ‘Minority World’ and the ‘Majority World’ in order to challenge the assumptions of superiority and inferiority associated with traditional representations of ‘First World/Third World’ or ‘developed/underdeveloped’. Central to the discussion is the notion of a specific photographic point of view based on the author’s background as a Minority World photographer who has undertaken extensive work in the Majority World.