The Humanitarian Eye: Photography and the 20th-Century Quest to Save Innocents Abroad

FAIN: FA-57772-14

Heide Fehrenbach
Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL 60115-2828)

For the past century, photographic images of vulnerable children have been commonly used to raise awareness and funds for humanitarian causes, yet the visual history of international humanitarian advocacy has eluded systematic study. This book project fills the gap by examining how a diverse range of individuals and organizations, based in Britain, Europe, and the U.S., deployed photographic media to stir emotion, shape social values, and stimulate response to distant suffering. Beginning in the late 19th century, it traces the evolution of visual tropes and narratives through different photographic technologies: from public slide lectures and polemical illustrated books and pamphlets, through photojournalism and television to the internet. Drawing upon archival, visual and published sources, it is an interpretative visual history of the rise and spread of humanitarian ethics articulated via the symbolic figure of the child.

Associated Products

Children and Other Civilians: Photography and the Politics of Humanitarian Image-Making (Book Section)
Title: Children and Other Civilians: Photography and the Politics of Humanitarian Image-Making
Author: Heide Fehrenbach
Editor: Davide Rodogno
Editor: Heide Fehrenbach
Abstract: This essay considers what are arguably the formative years of humanitarianism’s “iconography of childhood” – the late 19th century through the two World Wars – in order to trace aspects of its historical development, paying particular attention to the visual and rhetorical practices of politically diverse actors in Britain, Europe, and the United States. Its ambitions are modest, yet nonetheless essential: First, to establish a loose chronology of when humanitarian imagery came to be dominated by a focus on the symbolic figure of the child. Second, to chart some visual tropes that informed, or emerged from, this practice in a range of distribution venues, including illustrated books, organizational newsletters, and pictorial magazines. Third, to suggest the political valences of child-centered imagery as well as the extent to which it became a shared cultural strategy across media formats and political-ideological camps, in an extended era of World War (1910s-1940s).
Year: 2015
Primary URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/humanitarian-photography/2C062E187EC1592FC2FA5AECAA9670AF
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Title: Humanitarian Photography: A History
ISBN: 9781107587694

‘A Horrific Photo of a Drowned Syrian Child’: Humanitarian Photography and NGO Media Strategies in Historical Perspective (Article)
Title: ‘A Horrific Photo of a Drowned Syrian Child’: Humanitarian Photography and NGO Media Strategies in Historical Perspective
Author: Davide Rodogno
Author: Heide Fehrenbach
Abstract: This article is a historical examination of the use of photography in the informational and fundraising strategies of humanitarian organizations. Drawing on archival research and recent scholarship, it shows that the figure of the dead or suffering child has been a centrepiece of humanitarian campaigns for over a century and suggests that in earlier eras too, such photos, under certain conditions, could “go viral” and achieve iconic status. Opening with last year’s photo campaign involving the case of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, whose body washed up on a Turkish beach near Bodrum in early September 2015, the article draws on select historical examples to explore continuities and ruptures in the narrative framing and emotional address of photos depicting dead or suffering children, and in the ethically and politically charged decisions by NGO actors and the media to publish and distribute such images. We propose that today, as in the past, the relationship between media and humanitarian NGOs remains symbiotic despite contemporary claims about the revolutionary role of new visual technologies and social media.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: https://www.icrc.org/en/international-review/article/horrific-photo-drowned-syrian-child-humanitarian-photography-and-ngo
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: International Review of the Red Cross
Publisher: International Committee of the Red Cross

Children as Casework: The Problem of Migrating and Refugee Children in the Era of World War (Book Section)
Title: Children as Casework: The Problem of Migrating and Refugee Children in the Era of World War
Author: Heide Fehrenbach
Editor: Jacqueline Bhabha, Daniel Senovilla Hernandez, and Jyothi Kanics
Abstract: International response to unaccompanied migrant and refugee children has a century-long history. The construction of such children as a social problem requiring professionalized attention dates to the aftermath of the First World War and the rise of international social work for unaccompanied children separated from families by war, migration or displacement. This chapter forces on the work of the International Social Service, founded by female social workers from Europe and the US who worked collaboratively across national borders to develop and disseminate the professional methods, standards, and ethics – such as the modern casework method and a commitment to the “best interest of the child” – that continue to inform international child migration and relief work today.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/research-handbook-on-child-migration
Primary URL Description: Publisher website
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Book Title: Research Handbook of Child Migration
ISBN: 978 1 78643 36

Photography, Civilians, and the Polemics of Peace: A Historical Perspective (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Photography, Civilians, and the Polemics of Peace: A Historical Perspective
Author: Heide Fehrenbach
Abstract: This essay aspires to conceptualize and historicize the use of photography for peace-building. I begin by posing some basic structuring questions: Are there specific genres of photography focused on peacebuilding and conflict transformation? If so, what are their properties and characteristics? Under what conditions did this photographic practice emerge: what were the essential political, institutional or international preconditions? When, that is, did the contemporary concern to foster transitional justice emerge as an “optic” – allowing groups to mobilize photography to invoke human rights claims against domestic oppressors, prosecute crimes of perpetrators, shape successor governments, and seek to heal post-conflict societies?
Date: 6/14/17
Conference Name: Visualizing Peace: Photography, Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, University of Edinburgh, UK

Humanitarian Imagery and the Irresistible Appeal of the Child (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Humanitarian Imagery and the Irresistible Appeal of the Child
Abstract: 2nd Annual Driedger Lecture sponsored by the Driedger Fund On social media and in our newsfeeds and mailboxes, heart-rending images of needy or suffering children confront us on a daily basis. They seek to grab our attention, prick our moral conscience, stimulate empathy and political action, or open our wallets for a good cause. Modern humanitarianism and photography emerged in the 19th century and came of age together. But when did humanitarian campaigns first begin to feature children? How do these images appeal to their audiences, and why does this focus persist? This talk will consider the history of humanitarianism through the lens of the camera and its focus on the child. History suggests that while depictions of children-in-need may appear static and predictable, for over a century they have been deployed in various ways for a surprising array of political agendas.
Author: Heide Fehrenbach
Date: 4/1/17
Location: Univeristy of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

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