Towards a critical visual pedagogy: a response to the ‘end of poverty’ narrative

Abstract

In this article, the author calls for a critical visual pedagogy as a means to challenge visually constituted ‘grand narratives’ of poverty and suffering. In the first half, he situates images of poverty in India within a global development discourse termed the ‘end of poverty’, which functions as the rationale for social interventions in the global south and sustains a circuit of ‘poverty capital’. The author critically analyzes the visual aesthetic that accompanies the ‘end of poverty’ narrative, focusing on the visual choices that reinforce difference and promote the perception that marginalized populations need ‘saving’. Using images from his fieldwork with students in a village school in Karnataka, India, about 50 km south of Bangalore, he proposes an alternative visual aesthetic, grounded in visual ethnography, which may serve to counter the ‘end of poverty’, and grand narratives like it, while impacting how and why we participate in poverty alleviation efforts.