Diana Reiners Libera Università di Bolzano, Italia, Università di San Gallo, Svizzera e Università di Graz, Austria
Carole Reckinger
Gilles Reckinger University of Innsbruck, Austria
DOI: 10.12835/ve2016.1-0063
Abstract
The working conditions of African labourers in Calabria
are characterized by severe precariousness, exploitation
and poor remuneration, which lead to deplorable living
conditions. Thousands of migrant workers live in unheated
tent camps and makeshift barracks.
The catastrophic living and working conditions of orange
pickers in Calabria are widely unknown to the general
public. The Bitter Oranges project combines documentary
photography, self-representation and short captions
explaining the economic and political conditions that
provide a framework to the visual ethnographic material.
The goal of the visual ethnographic exhibition is to show
the widely ignored working and living conditions of
African migrants in Southern Italy to a broad public
all over Europe. The exhibition responds to one of the
urgent needs migrants in Calabria’s camps expressed: to
overcome the structural and epistemological violence of
their hidden and unseen exploitation. The participatory
approach of this visual anthropological study further aims
to render “voicing” possible: giving the people the means to
photographically document their destitute everyday living
conditions. Finally, this visual anthropological study aims
to empower people who are ostracized and forced to live at
the margins of European society by offering the opportunity
to represent themselves and gain a public platform. This
exhibition contributes to a decolonized gaze, putting a focus
on people’s agency despite the slave–like conditions that are
imposed on them structurally.
Keywords
African migrants, refugees, participatory action research (PAR), Photovoice, precariousness, deprivation, inequality, postcolonial perspective, visual ethnography.
