Photography projects can draw our attention, poignantly, to class inequality. Consider Vivian Mayer’s vintage photographs of New York and Chicago, for example, or Peter Menzel’s What We Own series. We need these projects because most of us are in class-segregated occupations and neighborhoods, not to mention a profoundly unequal world.
Photographer James Mollison has embarked on a similar project, Where Children Sleep, sent in by Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University, Yvette M., Amanda B., Dmitriy T.M., and my sister, Keely. Mollison has documented children and their bedrooms around the world. It’s heartbreaking to see how much some children have, and how little others do.
See the pictures, with details about the children, at the New York Times.
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.
