After years of experience in the field, I often wonder if a person's spirit can change to the point of loving only the horrid and the rotten parts of the world: landfills, prisons, war, annihilated people. Perhaps this is the true spirit of a war reporter: going deep, digging into the hole of the world, into the hole of souls, until losing one's own humanity.
I am aware that, after seeing so much evil, beauty no longer appeals to me. Beauty does not satisfy me because I know all the tricks, I know all the systems. By now, I know everything that is part of the game of the white man in Africa or elsewhere. What for many is a beautiful place and a mystical experience, for me, is nothing more than a big tourist trap. A trap that fails to give me emotions, and that scares me.
The only emotion I feel while taking photos is telling the world's evil. Perhaps this is truly my destiny: to dig into the darkness, to reveal the horror hidden beneath the surface, and, in this process, to feel my soul suffer, torn between the desire for justice and the awareness of evil.
It's as if my spirit is trapped in a downward spiral, irresistibly drawn towards the bottom. Every image of suffering, every story of pain, imprints itself on my being, leaving me marked and unable to find peace in beauty. I often wonder if I am losing my humanity, if the ability to feel joy and wonder is fading. Perhaps, in this journey, I have sacrificed too much of myself. Yet, I feel it is my duty to continue, to tell the stories that no one wants to hear, to reveal the truths that everyone tries to hide.
Reporter: The Pornography of Poverty
Over the years, I have witnessed the absurdity of the world and the impact of good marketing. The pornography of poverty, a term coined in 1985, is vital for a Western world hungry for images of starving children, allowing it to atone for its sins. From the widely criticized song "Do They Know It’s Christmas" to the Lammy/Dooley scandal surrounding Comic Relief, and the murder of George Floyd followed by the Black Lives Matter movement, the NGO sector has faced decades of pressure to realize that the stories it tells not only raise funds but also educate, and not always positively.
The authors of a new study, "Charity Representations of Distant Others," argue that these pressures have been acknowledged and that change is happening. "If the number of publicly available ethical communication guidelines from NGOs is any indicator, much progress has been made," they state. However, I am not sure the data revealed in this study supports such optimism. I suspect that while there might be growing internal awareness of the need for change, externally, for the audiences of charity communications, not much has changed.
Stereotypes and Representations
Authors Deborah Adesina and David Girling created a dataset with a six-month database of charity advertisements placed in all national newspapers in the UK in 2021, totaling 363 ads. The accompanying research paper describes the database as a "snapshot of the evolution and trends in charity representation." The shift from "pitiful" to positive emerged as a preferred action by fundraisers aiming to change the representation of poverty.
While tangible actions towards change should always be celebrated, this seems to miss the fundamental point of change. Positive stereotypes are just as alienating as negative ones. This approach allows NGO fundraisers to feel comfortable, avoiding radical changes from existing fundraising rules. Instead, it requires more complex but ultimately more transformative work: adding context and nuance to the stories.
The study reveals that most traditionally repeated stereotypes are still predominant. The authors also demonstrated that Africa remains the dominant subject of charity appeals, with more than half of the ads portraying the continent, even when this does not reflect the programmatic delivery ratio of the organizations producing these ads. This contributes to maintaining the colonial notion of Africa as a vast "begging bowl." The impact of this is even more concerning, with evidence suggesting that the UK public views "developing countries" as synonymous with "Africa" and associates Africa with poverty and misery.
The Identification Dilemma
In discussions about adding context to storytelling, the issue of naming the individuals depicted often arises. These ads showed that only 55% of the individuals photographed were named. The authors advocate for naming everyone in the images, arguing that without this, there is an implication "that the subject is made good enough to validate and legitimize Western development intervention, but not good enough to enjoy the privilege of representing themselves."
Naming people has been regularly cited as one of the most basic steps any organization can take to shift the narrative from "subject" to "human," but I'm not sure that naming someone moves them from "subject" to a place where they enjoy the privilege of self-representation.
The Power of Large NGOs
It was also revealed how representations of global poverty are dominated by the "big four": MSF (with twice as many ads as any other organization), followed by UNHCR, UNICEF, and the British Red Cross. The marketing spending power behind these large organizations highlights their significant impact in creating and maintaining narratives about aid and poverty.
Conclusions
How did I come to this? For years, I have witnessed the absurdity of the world and the complex role of NGOs and the media in the representation of poverty. Continuing to document and reveal the hidden horror beneath the surface is a mission that consumes me, leaving me marked and unable to find peace in beauty. But I feel it is my duty to continue, to tell the stories that no one wants to hear, to reveal the truths that everyone tries to hide. Perhaps, in this process, I will find a way to reconcile my spirit with the world I see, to find a fragment of humanity that can save my soul from complete darkness.
Land grabbing is still talked about too little, but intensive farming of soy, avocados, and other products is also ravaging people and landscapes. This issue, however, seems not to get the attention it deserves. Why is that? Perhaps because "Lettuce doesn’t get enough Likes."
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