Analysis: Saving Africa? by Jim Hubbard

“So, are you a missionary?” A retired South African physician asked me, his contempt not thinly-veiled. I’d tried to explain why my colleagues and I had come to his country during our many conversations. But, the doctor mistook my words; I was on a “mission.”
In 1950, before I was eight, I was introduced to Africa and missionary work when plain looking missionaries returning from Africa would visit our all-white inner city Detroit Baptist church. They would bring out their projectors and show the congregation pictures of the African people they were living and working with and trying to “save.”

The missionaries explained that these people were uneducated, living with unchecked diseases, inadequate shelter and often starving. They recounted stories of helping these Africans build homes and schools. They’d provided medical care to the infirm and shared stories from the Bible. They were doing good work.

I was frightened by the images from this far away place. My prior knowledge of Africa had been that of head hunting, savagery and Tarzan. The images these missionaries showed did nothing to dispel my fears. I was afraid to get too near them, as they had been exposed to the scary people depicted through their projector.

Five decades later I journeyed to Africa on two projects. For our missions, we bring the tools of modern photographic technology to neglected people. Our praxis is teaching the skills necessary for them to self produce in stories and pictures their everyday lives to the outside world. On our second mission in 2006 cameras were given to African mothers living with HIV/AIDS in shanty towns near Cape Town.

As I explained to the doctor, these women had volunteered to be in our program. He simply said, “We don’t need any more missionaries here.” I learned that this gentleman had headed the medical team for the first heart transplant in history and was Christiaan Barnard’s supervisor in Cape Town. I realized that the transplant was performed in 1967, the same year that I covered the deadly race-based riots in Detroit, MI.

There didn’t seem to be much left to say, so I headed back to our bed and breakfast, a few doors down from the doctor in an all white, upscale and heavily secured neighborhood. On my way, I couldn’t get his words out of my head.

As an adult, I find my early reaction to the missionaries and Africa amusing. So, when the doctor had contemptuously dubbed me a “missionary,” I wasn’t insulted. Back at the B&B, I spoke with some of my colleagues about my conversation with the doctor. They pointed out that being called a “missionary” was far better than being dubbed a “colonizer.”

That night, however, I wondered which sort of missionary the doctor had meant, the traditional missionary or the Hollywood missionary? A valid question, I believe, since Africa has recently become the continent du jour and Hollywood has invaded.

Recently, trendy and glamorous celebrities have enlisted in the current cause célèbre. We see them often pictured in the deep, dark continent. Last week it was American Idol’s Simon Cowell, before that Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt… and the list grows. These nouveau missionaries are also doing good work or at least trying.

Electronic and print media of the developed world have long been fascinated by Africa, a land offering images of the exotic, the dramatic, colorful cultures, wildlife and human despair and cruelty not normally found in the west. American media is often more comfortable showing people in distress abroad rather that at home.

The vast continent is rich in mineral wealth and cursed with monstrous health and poverty issues. Efforts to save Africa have deep roots in colonialist doctrine. Colonialism was often based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized. Some observers link such beliefs to racism and pseudo-scientific theories dating to the 17th and 18th centuries.

The U.S. government and businesses have vital interests in Africa. Our military is expanding their role there and consider it strategic in our war against terrorism. While human compassion can be a driving force toward helping others, there is an ideological commonality between the missionaries, the trendier types on their mission de rigueur and the military/industrial machine all cherishing the belief that we have a better way.

With all of this concern for Africa, a recent study reveals some internal dysfunction in reporting at-risk children. In fact, a surprising report from the U.N. Children’s Fund says the U.S. and Britain are the worst countries in the industrialized world in which to be a child. Many factors, such as poverty, deprivation, happiness, risky or bad behavior puts both major western powers at the bottom of a list of 21 economically developed nations.

Sometimes at night, my thoughts drift back to the contemptuous doctor. I wonder, is our lifestyle what all the world wants or needs? Is a nation with a long list of billionaires who give away one percent or less of their wealth a model? Are a people who invest more dollars in a war machine than human need entitled the luxury of traveling the globe extolling the virtues of their culture? An old metaphor,”lifeboat ethics,” comes to mind as lawmakers in Washington debate cutting health benefits for our nation’s seniors to provide insurance for our children.

While earning a Master of Divinity degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C. and following thirty years as a globe-trotting photojournalist, I pondered some of these issues and explored work in the mission fields. A professor, the son-in-law of a famous missionary to India, E. Stanley Jones, mentored me about work in India and Africa.

He described mission work in Asia and Africa but never mentioned America in these discussions but intimated Americans could always “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” a theme often echoed by former President Reagan.

The popularity to “save Africa” prompts me to examine my own intentions. There are millions of people in many lands who need economic, medical and spiritual nurturing, even in my own country. America is a bright light in a sometimes dark world but America has its own darkness. A barometer of this is illustrated in our pathetically low standing on the list of industrialized nations in the areas of education, health care, housing and other quality of life categories. A recent study showed that one third of Washington D.C., residents are functionally illiterate.

Those given much, much is expected. Within our collective compassion and privilege we can continue finding ways to help save people from natural and unnatural calamities while also examining our credibility and purpose as saviors. This applies not only to me but also to the super-rich, the famous and powerful.

Occasionally, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons will knock at my door with Bibles tucked under their arms. Their mission is in my neighborhood. And they have a point.

The doctor in Africa had a stunning collection of antique cars and equally stunning, yet disturbing, views on the current state of South African affairs. Finally he said, “I am sad for the future of South Africa.” I am sad for the future of the United States.

USC News | Pictures That Tell Powerful Stories

Pictures That Tell Powerful Stories

By Susan Wampler

Original post, click here.

10/08/07 USC Annenberg launches the Institute for Photographic Empowerment, a project in which the subjects - the real insiders - share their stories through striking images.

Latifa was 6 years old when she was orphaned by AIDS. Today, she and six siblings live in their parents’ one-room home in Maputo, Mozambique, with their 18-year-old brother as head of the household.

In August, the now 11-year-old Latifa and 25 other AIDS orphans in Maputo worked with American photographers and filmmakers to document their lives. Her photos have been published online, and her story is being shared with readers around the world.

The project, conducted by Venice Arts, is among a burgeoning movement of “participant-produced” photography and film programs that give traditionally marginalized and underrepresented communities a direct way of communicating about their struggles and accomplishments, raising awareness that can lead to social change.

Venice Arts is teaming with the USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy to launch the Institute for Photographic Empowerment, a unique university-community partnership to support the study and practice of participant-produced documentary projects in photography, film and digital media.

“A social phenomenon is emerging in countless communities and countries that we think deserves to be celebrated, replicated, studied and identified,” said Geoffrey Cowan, University Professor and director of the Center for Communication Leadership.

“The institute combines the resources, energies and contacts of Venice Arts and USC Annenberg. Venice Arts has compiled a remarkable record in the United States and the world - from helping the homeless document their lives to giving voice to women in Africa who are living with HIV-AIDS. At USC Annenberg, scholars are studying the impact of these images on communities and individuals.”

Cowan and the other principals of the institute - Lynn Warshafsky, Venice Arts’ co-founder; Joshua Fouts, director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy; Neal Baer, executive producer of the NBC series Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and a Venice Arts’ board member; and Jim Hubbard, acclaimed documentary photographer and Venice Arts’ creative director - announced the institute’s creation at a press briefing this month.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to develop a growing field by bringing a cross-section of people together in practice, study and research,” Warshafsky said. “More importantly, it provides new opportunities for those of us who have been working in communities for many years to better advocate for social change and to support those who tend to be the most voiceless amongst us by lifting up their powerful visual stories for the world to see.”

The Institute is the first of its kind and will serve as a resource for photographers, filmmakers, academics, researchers and project participants to share best practices and develop this important and burgeoning field. It will:

• create a portal through which projects from all over the world can be viewed;

• support social change by sharing information and images produced by participants with policymakers and non-governmental organizations;

• convene conferences, retreats and seminars;
• conduct academic research and explore ethical issues;
• offer internship opportunities on documentary projects around the world;

• develop new courses at USC Annenberg, including distance learning, certificate programs and potentially new degree and minor programs;

• serve as a source for media interested in participant-produced photography and the issues being uncovered through their work;
• partner with secondary schools to engage in the institute’s projects as a teaching tool;
• disseminate the resulting work through exhibitions and an online gallery; and

• increase awareness of critical social issues being addressed through participant-created photography and film.Hubbard began putting cameras into the hands of homeless and Native American children through his Shooting Back project more than 20 years ago. Instead of having outsiders - documentary photographers - produce the work, his method has the subjects themselves take the pictures.

The USC Annenberg School will offer its first class on this topic in the Spring 2008 semester. Taught by Hubbard, the course is titled “Visual Communication and Social Change” (COMM 499).

For more information about IPE, visit http://http://joinipe.org

To read more about Latifa, visit http://www.thehouseissmall.org/

2008 IVSA CONFERENCE | Buenos Aires, Argentina

The 2008 IVSA conference, taking place in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 6-8, 2008, is currently accepting abstracts for papers, presentations, films, posters, or videos on the broad theme of “SPACE, TIME and IMAGE.” Read more

2008 Call For Papers - IVSA

2008 CALL FOR PAPERS

The 2008 IVSA conference is currently accepting abstracts for papers, presentations, films, posters, or videos on the broad theme of “SPACE, TIME and IMAGE.”

Submission deadline: May 15, 2008

Papers -
Scholars, researchers and practitioners of the field wishing to submit a paper are invited to send an abstract of 200-300 words DIRECTLY to panel organizers. The organizers’ e-mail addresses can be found on the detailed list of more than forty panels with specific topics and abstracts that are seeking submissions. Presentations may be made in any of the three conference languages: Portuguese, Spanish or English.

* 2008 Panels - English (PDF)
* 2008 Panels - Spanish (PDF)
* 2008 Panels - Portuguese (PDF)

Presentations, Films, Posters, or Videos -
The conference will have space for posters (up to 4 feet by 8 feet) and videos. Videos will be shown in rotation in our main auditorium. Please send abstracts and poster descriptions to Francesco Lapenta (visualsociology@gmail.com) or Eric Margolis (emmargolis@gmail.com).