Photographs traverse the world in many forms and for many purposes. They follow and trace movements and networks of people, and have become essential objects in linking the past, present and future of migrating communities. Vernacular images, in the home, in academic research are often described as ordinary and mundane; their representational aspects are perceived to be repetitive and unremarkable, for example, family portraits and snapshots. However, this article argues that home (vernacular) photographs are privileged objects and it is their universality and social significance that should elevate their role in social science research. In this article, I will show how photographs, in the social lives of a Gujarati community in Christchurch, New Zealand, have adapted to the migrant context, by helping to secure and maintain vital relationships between the migrant’s village home in India and their Christchurch home in New Zealand. I will argue that photographs adapt to specific migrant contexts and can perform as transitional objects (security blankets) for migrant communities. I use the Chakra Wheel as a visual and metaphorical symbol to help explain the shifts and movements of the photographs presented by the Gujarati/New Zealand participants in this research.
Exploring the everyday photographs of people offers new possibilities in anthropological research and focuses attention on a form of visual medium that is often taken for granted and glossed over in social research. By looking at the personal photographs of a Gujarati community in New Zealand, I discovered not only the importance of photographs in their lives but also the significant social relationships they have with them. For this community the most important photographs are their ancestral ones. Here I explore the affective, devotional and therapeutic nature of these images. I will discuss their elevated significance, darshanic qualities, and their ability to keep present deceased relatives in the respondents' day-to-day lives. I make strong links with Barthes' [1980] concept of punctum, and the therapeutic nature of vernacular photos as described in the discipline of phototherapy, and will extend the discussion on affective agency by suggesting that photographs in migrant communities do more than act as sites of memory: they also act as a form of therapeutic agency for their viewers, by maintaining important social relationships and connections, and ultimately supporting a sense of national, familial and cultural connectivity.Photographs provide a way of keeping visual recollections of the past safe from the dulling grasp of time; so we store them with care; cherishing them. [Berman 1993: 13] By exploring the everyday photographs of people and by focusing attention on a form of visual medium that is often taken for granted and glossed over in social research, new possibilities and insights can be gathered. The concept of ''everyday photographs'' refers to those that are created and viewed in the context of the vernacular, and more specifically, within the homes and archives of families. The historical work of Marianne Hirsch [1997] and her use of family photo albums to KATHLEEN HARRINGTON-WATT is an Anthropology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her research is on the social life of the Indentured Labour Portrait Archive in Mauritius. With a particular interest in anthropology and photography, she also has a background in Art Therapy (M.A.), art history and visual anthropology.
This chapter will present and discuss the system of indentured labor established by the British Empire during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a new form of labor acquisition for the colonies. The indentured labor system was created in response to the British Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833. This chapter will outline the nature of the indentured labor system, why it was started, and how it functioned. It will then examine how such a migrant labor system impacted upon both the migrants and receiving colonies, paying particular attention to the notion of ethnicity and the development of multiethnic communities. Mauritius is
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