Negotiating Subjectivities

Negotiating Subjectivities is a one-day symposium held at Goldsmiths that I organised as part of my Research Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, with Chris Wright as mentor.

The symposium included three consecutive panels where photographers, sociologists and anthropologists discussed visual and social scientific work, which address notions of the body - particularly in relation to health, phototherapy, medical practice, imaging technology, personal narratives of disease, as well as notions of subjectivity and embodiment.

Session1: Photography, Subjectivity and Illness. This panel explores the various ways in which photography has been used to approach disease. How, for example, photography has been deployed as a research instrument or as a therapeutic medium and, in doing so, how it has challenged notions of individual subjectivity. Chair: Sophie Day. Speakers: Carlos Canal, Julie Roberts & Jen Tarr.

Session2: Portraits and life stories. This panel addresses the opportunities and issues that arise at the interplay between the methodologies of social research, biographical storytelling and portrait photography. Chair: Vic Seidler. Speakers: Katharina Mouratidi, Carol Reeves & Rebecca Coleman.

Session3: Theorising photography and the body. This panel engages with intersections and emerging developments between contemporary photography and social theory, especially those concerning subjectivity and the body. Chair: Andrew Irving. Speakers: Zed Nelson, Bronwyn Parry & Michael Halewood.