Photogenic Poverty: Souvenirs and Infantilism

Abstract

This article discusses the photograph and the souvenir together as relics of a trinketizing touristic countenance. It argues that the reified image memorializes the exotic other, and a romanticized view of childhood, in the midst of war and deprivation. Charity and memory are bound together here with geo-politics. An analysis of similarities and differences in the ways photographs and souvenirs trace encounters with ‘photogenic poverty’ is urgent. A critical political response would aim to do more than the infantilizing gestures of charity and aid now favoured by liberal concern under late imperial capitalism.