Carl G. alerted us to a controversy starring photographer, Umida Akhmedova.  Akhmedova’s pictures of her native Uzbekistan have incited the country to try her for defamation.  If found guilty, she could be sentenced to six months in prison or three years of forced labor.  Here are some of her photographs.

 

The state argues that Akhmedova has defamed and slandered Uzbekistan, making it seem as if the country is impoverished and backward. Photographers are defending Akhmedova, arguing that if anything makes Uzbekistan look backward, it’s their desire to censor artists. Frankly, I can see both points.

First, I do think that Akhmedova should be able to capture what she likes and disseminate her images.  The problem is not her representation.  The problem is that Akhmedova’s photographs may be the only representations of Uzbekistan that some people ever see.  That is, the problem isn’t Akhmedova’s pictures, it’s that there aren’t more photographs, of varying parts of Uzbek life, by more photographers noticed outside of the state.

Whenever there is a limited number of representations (or when those that are available converge), those that are disseminated tend to overdetermine perceptions of that place or those peoples.  That is, that one representation comes to stand for the whole.  We in the U.S. would likely not image a similar controversy over one photographers images of say, celebrities (to take an extreme example), because there are thousands of counter-representations.  Uzbekistan, however, does not have the luxury of not caring how the state is represented in Akhmedova’s photos.

So, to conclude, I don’t think Akhmedova should be in trouble, but I do understand why Uzbekistan might be so sensitive.

We’ve seen the same phenomenon with photos of the Middle East, AppalachiaAmerican Indian art, Africa (see both here and here) and, I’ve argued, the TV show Jersey Shore.  We could make the same argument about the preponderance of images of just one type of beauty.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.