Open AccessBeyond Polaroid: Visual Rhetoric in Shaping Refugee’s Identity
Author(s) -
Donna John
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
smart moves journal ijellh
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2582-4406
pISSN - 2582-3574
DOI - 10.24113/ijellh.v9i5.11061
Subject(s) - refugee , rhetoric , humanity , identity (music) , narrative , rhetorical question , consciousness , visual rhetoric , sociology , aesthetics , photography , media studies , political science , visual arts , psychology , law , art , literature , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience
Photographs tend to have an ability to influence the collective consciousness of humanity. Sonja K. Foss, a rhetorical educator, opines that language is general while images are concrete and specific. Many a time, photographs have become spokespersons of the suffering and needy lot. Throughout its history, photography has created opinions, constructed realities of people and brought human tragedies to the forefront. The refugee crisis is in no way an exception. In fact, the conscience of the whole world in regard to the refugees was awakened by an appalling photograph of a three-year-old Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi, lying face-down into the sand. Such photographs, often symbolic and termed as visual rhetoric, slowly turned into stereotypes defining the refugee crisis. This paper discusses on how these visual narratives have shaped the identity of refugees and created various regimes of seeing.