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Photographic portraits of migrants in South Africa: framed between identity photographs and (self-)presentation

This essay explores how migration within the African continent is framed visually by passport photos as well as artistic documentary projects based in Johannesburg, South Africa. It offers examples of what type of photographic (self-)portraits are constructed, which photographs circulate and how African migrants’ self-images as well as South African society’s perception of them are affected by certain photographic images. The method employed is a close reading of some paradigmatic photographs. In addition, I will discuss different – and often gendered – ways in which African migrant subjects may become visible. In short, this essay asks, what photographic portraits construct the hegemonic view of the African migrant subject in the public sphere? Accordingly, the tension between visibility and invisibility of African migrants’ lives emerges in the interstices of the inquiry. The paper first looks at the taking of identity photographs, since the passport photo exemplifies how the individual is made visible by the nation state. It can simultaneously serve as a poignant reminder of the ambivalent qualities of photography: on the one hand, documenting and codifying, and on the other hand, creatively representing. In this context, the essay explores the possibility of remaining invisible or “opaque,” but also the conceivably more empowering representational aspect of photography such as we see in participatory (art) projects, which may be connected to the visual politics of self-expression and reflection.