Using Images in Research on Immigration Detention: Tensions and Challenges

 

So far, I’ve discovered that images are a useful means to record particular events and moments in the course of fieldwork. An image condenses a set of sensations, colors, smells, sounds, and emotions that are often difficult to put into words. As a research tool, this aspect of images can be enormously powerful. As I review an image, even when I’m in my office, I can suddenly recall the context, both physical and emotional, in which it was taken. In this way, I use the evocative power of the image to be able to ‘go back’ into the field when I’m out of it. In a similar fashion, images can make ‘real’ issues that privileged groups (Italian citizens, in my case) prefer to ignore. Letting people ‘enter’ immigration detention centers through such images can provoke a strong impact, raising people’s awareness.

 

On the other hand, as I’ve already noted, taking images can be invasive. The (potentially) exploitative and asymmetrical nature of research relationships is unavoidable; images may strengthen this dynamic by catering to voyeuristic appetites, both of the researchers and those who have access to the pictures. Photographs can objectify and reinforce stereotypes, especially when they concern marginalized and oppressed groups. In this sense, and according to my authorization, the photos I take mostly portray the CIE’s interior spaces and landscapes―environments that are far from familiar, ordinary, and sterile, similar to the ones exposed in Border Country.

 

The majority of detainees don’t like to be photographed: they don’t want their friends and families to know that they are in detention; they’re ashamed of their condition, and often feel guilty about it. Many, especially women, are also worried about their safety since they’re escaping situations of persecution, domestic violence, trafficking, and sexual or labor exploitation. Ethical concerns are particularly relevant in these specific situations, and more generally in sites like these ones, where people experience a certain degree of powerlessness. Detainees’ concerns, fears, and personal preferences need to be respected; special care must be taken so my actions as a researcher don’t expose them to any form of risk or increase their distress.

 

Images can be a powerful tool to portray the lived experiences of people in sites of confinement, especially when integrated with other methods, such as oral narratives. They can tell the ‘research story,’ also speaking to the various ways in which, as researchers, we are part of it. However, it’s necessary to engage in an ongoing reflection on the meanings that images assume in our research processes. Such a dialogue allows us as researchers to become more aware of and able to navigate tensions and challenges that inevitably arise by using visual methodologies, including the tensions between voyeurism and knowledge production, as well as that between ‘giving voice’ and possessing/exploiting others’ voices.