The face in the image, the image without face: poverty and precarity in journalistic photography about Bolsa-Família Program1

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to produce an analysis grounded on the notion of face understood as a vocalization of an agony and of an ethical demand made by the Other, giving birth to a responsibility relationship. Such concept, derived from the thought of Lévinas and reworked by Butler, is used here to guide the analysis of specific photojournalistic images related to the Bolsa-Família Program. The corpus of the research has a total of 120 images, assembled between 2003 and 2015 from newspapers of large national distribution, such as Folha de São Paulo, Estado de São Paulo and O Globo. In order to investigate the political and ethical dimensions of these images, they were grouped into two main axes of signification: a) faceless images: theface cannot make its appearance even if human face is portrayed in them; b) the face in the image / the face of the image: in them the face appears as appealing, a call that is addressed to us and make us aware of the precariousness and vulnerability of our lives. We conclude from these two groups of images that the face speaks and requires to be listened, it is a vocalization of a suffering, of a moan and of a demand that creates intersections between aesthetics and politics from the way images intervenes in the framing construction of ethical relations with alterity.
  • Referencias
  • Cómo citar
  • Del mismo autor
  • Métricas
Butler, J. (2004). Precarious Life. London: Verso.

Butler, J. (2011). Vida precária. Contemporânea. Revista de Sociologia da UFSCar, 1, 13-33.

Butler, J. (2015). Quadros de guerra: quando a vida é passível de luto? Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.

Butler, J. (2016). We, the people: thoughts on Freedom of Assembly. In A. Badiou, et al. What is a people? Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/badi16876-004

Cabanes, R. & Georges, I. (2014). Gestion de la pauvreté et enterpreneuriat de soi: un nouveau compromis de gouvernement au croisement des politiques sociales et néoliberales? Brésil(s), 6, 7-15. https://doi.org/10.4000/bresils.1237

Fassin, D. (2006). Souffrir par le social, gouverner par l'écoute: une configuration sémantique de l'action publique. Politix, Paris, 19(73), 37-157. https://doi.org/10.3917/pox.073.0137

Fassin, D. (2009). Another politics of life is possible. Theory, culture & society, 26(5), 44-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409106349

Fassin, D. (2010). Évaluer les vies: essai d'anthropologie biopolitique. Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie, 128(128), 105-115. https://doi.org/10.3917/cis.128.0105

Fassin, D. (2015). At the Heart of the State: the moral world of institutions. Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p5tb

Foucault, M. ([1981] 2003). Omnes et singulatim. In M. B. da Motta (ed.). Ditos e Escritos IV, Estratégia, poder-saber. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária, 355-385.

Foucault, M. (1980). Poder de morte e direito sobre a vida. In História da Sexualidade. A vontade de saber (Vol. 1). Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 127-152.

Fraser, N. (1987). Women, Welfare and the Politics of Need Interpretation. Thesis Eleven, 17, 13-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/072551368701700107

Lautier, B., (2012), La diversité des systèmes de protection sociale en Amérique Latine : une proposition de méthode d'analyse des configurations de droits sociaux. Revue de la régulation, 11, 45-59. https://doi.org/10.4000/regulation.9636

Lévinas, E. (1980). Totalidade e infinito. Lisboa: Edições 70.

Lévinas, E. (1999). Alterity and transcendence. New York: Columbia University Press.

Lévinas, E. (2005). Entre nós: ensaios sobre a alteridade. Petrópolis: Vozes.

Lévinas, E. (2007). Ética e infinito. Lisboa: Edições 70.

Lévinas, E. (2011). De outro modo que ser ou para lá da essência (Trad. J. L. Pérez & L. L. Pereira). Lisboa: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa.

Marques, A. (2009). Espaços institucionais e processos de participação cívica de mulheres pobres no contexto do Programa Bolsa-Família. Revista do Observatório do Milênio de Belo Horizonte, 2, 121-137.

Marques, A. (2010). A deliberação a longo prazo no espaço de visibilidade mediada: o Bolsa-Família na mídia impressa e televisiva. Estudos em Jornalismo e Mídia, 7, 273-285. https://doi.org/10.5007/1984-6924.2010v7n2p273

Marques, A. (2013). Três bases estéticas e comunicacionais da política: cenas de dissenso, criação do comum e modos de resistência. Contracampo, 26, 126-145. https://doi.org/10.22409/contracampo.v0i26.298

Marques, A. (2014). Política da imagem, subjetivação e cenas de dissenso. Discursos Fotográficos, 10, 61-86. https://doi.org/10.5433/1984-7939.2014v10n17p61

Rago, M. (2017). Foucault, o neoliberalismo e as insurreições feministas. In M. Rago & S. Gallo (Orgs.). Michel Foucault e as insurreições: é inútil revoltar-se? São Paulo: Intermeios, 363- 374.

Rancière, J. (1995). La Mésentente- politique et philosophie. Paris: Galilée.

Rancière, J. (2004). Aux bords du politique. Paris: Gallimard.

Rancière, J. (2007). Le travail de l'image. Multitudes, 28, 195- 210. https://doi.org/10.3917/mult.028.0195

Rancière, J. (2010a). Ten Thesis on politics. In Dissensus: on politics and aesthetics (Trad. e Ed. Steven Corcoran). Londres: Continuum, 27-43.

Rancière, J. (2010b). The ethical turn of aesthetics and politics. In S. Corcoran (Ed). Dissensus: on politics and aesthetics. Londres: Continuum, 184-202.

Rancière, J. (2011). Aisthesis. Paris: Galilée.

Rancière, J. (2012). O espectador emancipado. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.

Tassin, E. (1992). Espace commun ou espace public? L'antagonisme de la communauté et de la publicité. Hermès, 10, 23-37. https://doi.org/10.4267/2042/15351
Salgueiro Marques, A. C. S. (2018). The face in the image, the image without face: poverty and precarity in journalistic photography about Bolsa-Família Program1. Revista De Estudios Brasileños, 5(9), 77–91. https://doi.org/10.14201/reb2018597791

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Angela Cristina Salgueiro Salgueiro Marques

,
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
PhD in Social Communication from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG, Brazil). Professor of the post-graduation program in Social Communication at UFMG.
+