Experts predict that this summer travel season will be one of the busiest and most expensive ever. As an anthropologist, I'd argue that the money for travel is worth the experience of getting out of your comfort zone. And I'd also argue that taking pictures makes for great souvenirs if you're trying to keep your purchases to a minimum. But there are hidden costs to taking some of those great photos.
I conduct research in Guatemala, a popular Central American destination for Americans. Every year I see people taking pictures of Indigenous women, children, and sometimes men, often because Indigenous Peoples are using their distinctive Indigenous clothing. Or perhaps they are doing some kind of activity that we often do not have to do in more economically developed countries, like hauling water on our heads. Those pictures end up everywhere from social media feeds to publications. And while they make nice memories of the different ways of life you witnessed or even experienced, asking Indigenous subjects' permission to take and distribute that photo is more important because of what those photos ultimately end up doing: further exploiting an already exploited group of people. Generally, I see two kinds of photos that do this.
One kind of photo I often see that marginalizes its subjects is of an Indigenous woman and her young child, perhaps even so young as to still be in a woven carrier. The picture is beautiful, maybe even meaningful if the subject is an acquaintance. But when done without permission or carelessly, the distribution of such photos furthers the exploitation of Indigenous women and children. It marks them as "other" and "interesting" because they are "different" due to their Indigenous clothing, which in Guatemala is often used as a way to discriminate against them. Taking their picture without permission removes their agency over their own likeness. It also furthers their exploitation because the National Tourism Agency, INGUAT, has long exploited Indigenous women and children with their advertising materials without consent or compensation. Taking Indigenous women and children's photos and distributing them without their consent furthers that long history of abuse.
Another kind of photo I often see is that of an Indigenous person in Guatemala doing something that we often do not do in developed countries, such as carrying water from communal sources to homes. While it's important to document and understand the lived realities of Indigenous Peoples, taking photos of such activities and distributing them without consent of the photo's subjects is problematic because of how it fetishizes poverty and those who endure it. Such photos transform acts of survival into quaint practices that are often represented or spoken about as being part of a more simple, somehow wholesome life, when the reality is that enduring poverty in Guatemala is a brutal, often back-breaking reality of Indigenous Peoples' lives. In other words, photos run the risk of becoming part of poverty porn.
To be sure, asking Indigenous Peoples for their permission before taking their photos won't stop the long history of abuses they have and continue to endure, nor will it address the development gaps that make things like carrying water so interesting to foreigners. But asking permission to take photos of Indigenous Peoples recognizes their humanity and their ability to make decisions for themselves. And if it were you, wouldn't you want someone to ask permission before taking your picture?
Joyce Bennett is an associate professor of anthropology at Connecticut College.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
