The Politics of Syrian Photographic Representation: Intersections of Civilian Photography and Power Amidst Revolution

The ongoing crisis in Syria began in 2011 as a peaceful uprising. As the state turned to violent and repressive actions, photography played a central role in illuminating protesters’ civil disobedience, capturing violence as it happened. Since that time, it has become one of the most well-documented conflicts in history. Protestors, organizers, and witnesses circulated cellphone footage around Facebook and YouTube as a form of direct defiance to state media publications. As a result, a class of civilian photographers emerged who sought to combat narrative high-jacking by powerful actors. This research focuses on the perspectives of 10 Syrian civilian photographers with varying degrees of professionalization to examine their lived experiences and how they document and share visual representations of Syria. I argue that while accessibility to camera and communications technologies democratized photographic and journalistic practices in certain respects, civilian photographers are partly beholden to media and humanitarian institutions that uphold and reiterate media imperialist ideologies. I describe how photographers navigate forms of media imperialism as a necessary means to access resources and foreground a civilian narrative of the region’s past, present, and future.