The Camera as Witness: articulating Black lived experiences in Liverpool and the North West through photography pre-1948

这一博士项目旨在批判性地探索20世纪上半叶英国黑人社区的视觉表现和“黑人的生活体验”(Fanon 1986)，重点是西北地区。对黑人社区以及黑人社区摄影的研究往往集中在战后英国的摄影师和图像上，因为帝国风在英国海岸的到来-通常被定位为移民和存在的分水岭时刻。通过档案分析，这项研究试图通过调查1948年前摄影的存在和性质，其生产和使用的背景，并评估现有的解释和收集方法，来扩展和细微区分这一概念。尽管斯图尔特·霍尔(1984)、马克·西利(2019)和保罗·吉尔罗伊(1993；2011)等学者进行了大量工作，但在伦敦以外的地方，很少有人对布莱克的“生活经验”进行记录。这种缺乏代表性的现象在利物浦尤为明显--利物浦是一个多元文化的港口城市，被广泛认为是最古老的黑人社区的故乡。虽然确切的人口数字无法确定，但1919年和1948年是利物浦和其他港口城市发生针对黑人社区的种族暴力的重要时刻。这项研究利用霍尔(1984)和坎普特(2017)等关键理论，将摄影视为自我构建的工具，将阅读视为感官，询问在种族紧张、殖民主义和帝国的背景下，英国黑人的身份是如何在镜头前和镜头后表达出来的。它还询问如何通过摄影来表达可见性和存在，考虑到这些图像存在、使用和传播的空间背景。这个项目以我自己的家族历史和与利物浦的联系为起点，探索观看、发现和阅读摄影的历史和感官维度；询问它的存在和缺失，告诉我们黑人的生活经历。与文化机构中更广泛的反种族主义对话产生共鸣，该项目将协作提供解释、归档和编目实践，以支持对黑人生活经历的历史广度的理解。这个项目将使用涉及物体和照片的代理的理论，调查描绘早期黑人社区的图像可以被重新解释和重新激活的做法。通过与文化机构和相关社区合作，该项目将有助于为今后的口译实践制定一种包容和灵活的方法。

This doctoral project aims to critically explore visual representations of Black communities and the 'lived experience of Blackness' (Fanon 1986) in Britain - with a focus on the North West - during first half of the 20th century. Studies of photography of and by Black communities tend to centre on photographers and images in post-war Britain after the arrival of Empire Windrush on British shores - often positioned as the watershed moment of migration and presence. Through archival analysis, this research seeks to expand and nuance this notion by investigating the existence and nature of pre-1948 photography, its contexts of production and use, and evaluate existing approaches to its interpretation and collection.Although significant work has been undertaken by scholars like Stuart Hall (1984) Mark Sealy (2019) and Paul Gilroy (1993; 2011), there is less research into the documentation of the Black 'lived experience' outside of London. This lack of representation is particularly noticeable for Liverpool - a multicultural port city and widely recognised as home to the oldest Black community. Although exact population figures cannot be definitively stated, 1919 and 1948 were key dates in which Liverpool, along with other port cities saw significant moments of racially motivated violence against its Black communities. Using key theorisations like those from Hall (1984) and Campt (2017) that position photography as tool of self-construction and its readings as sensory, this research asks how Black identities in Britain were articulated in front of and behind the lens, against the backdrop of racial tension, colonialism, and Empire. It also asks how visibility and presence was expressed through photography by considering the spatial contexts in which such images existed, was used, and circulated. With my own family history and connection to Liverpool as a starting point, this project explores the historical and sensory dimensions to seeing, finding, and reading photography; asking what its existence and absence, tells us of Black lived experiences. Resonating with wider anti-racist conversations in cultural institutions, this project will collaboratively inform interpretive, archiving, and cataloguing practices that support understandings of the historical breadth of Black lived experiences. Using theory that addresses the agency of objects and photographs, this project will investigate practices through which images depicting early Black communities can be reinterpreted and reactivated. Through working with cultural institutions and relevant communities, this project will contribute to developing an inclusive and flexible approach to future interpretive practice.