Before the Image: The Political Ontology of Image-Making for Legal and Social Justice

Projektbeschreibung

Verzerrungen, Macht und Gerechtigkeit in einer visuellen Welt aufdecken

Bilder spielen eine zentrale Rolle für die Gerechtigkeit. Sie legen Gewalt offen, mobilisieren die Öffentlichkeit und dienen vor Gericht als Beweismittel. Was Bilder jedoch zeigen – und was sie verbergen –, hängt vom Kameradesign ab, und dies hat tiefgreifende Auswirkungen auf die Gerechtigkeit. Das ERC-finanzierte Projekt Before the Image geht der Frage nach: Was fließt in die Entstehung von Bildern für rechtliche und soziale Gerechtigkeit ein, bevor sie aufgenommen oder gesehen werden? Das Projekt wird eine politische Ontologie der Bildproduktion sowie einen innovativen methodischen Ansatz zur ethnografischen Erforschung neuartiger Bildtechnologien und ihrer Auswirkungen entwickeln. Auf diese Weise können Interessengruppen Verzerrungen besser angehen und Gerechtigkeit gewährleisten. Before the Image wird interdisziplinäre, kooperative ethnografische Studien zur Aufnahme und Nutzung von Bildern im Dienste der rechtlichen und sozialen Gerechtigkeit durchführen.

Ziel

Image-capturing devices are in our hands and pockets, attached to buildings, vehicles, and bodies, and above us in the sky. They document violence, war crimes, and human rights abuses in images that are used in trials and for social justice. Despite their promise of truth, images are also recognised as biased, partial, and positioned. However, this has mainly been explored by studying images – or people engaged with taking or viewing them. To understand images for legal and social justice, we must study how biases, partialities, and positionalities of images are produced, not only in relation to taking and viewing images, but also in processes of designing image technologies and developing camera and visual literacy skills – what this project terms before the image. The project works ethnographically, cross-disciplinarily, and collaboratively. It subcontracts civil society actors to explore what goes into the making of images for legal and social justice before they are taken or seen.

The objectives are to:
- Develop a political ontology of image-making that expands conceptualisations of how, when, and by whom images are made. By looking beyond the situations immediately around the capturing and viewing of images, the project broadens understandings of the time, places, and actors involved in image-making.
- Develop and test an innovative methodological approach to ‘studying the future’. By subcontracting and collaborating with key image actors to develop sites for ethnographic exploration, the project gains unique access to the development of emerging image technologies.
- Enhance the capacity of stakeholders to address biases and promote justice. By providing actionable insight into the preconditions of image production, the project empowers civil society organisations, legal institutions, and tech developers to navigate the ethical and practical challenges associated with image making, supporting their work to make images less unjust and more useful for justice.