ABSTRACT
A s discussions and questions about documentary practice are such a minefield it is unlikely I’ll avoid stepping on many before I’ve mapped out my thoughts, but I’ll try. I’m glad that the organizers have asked a woman to speak, who is middle-aged, comes from an economically poor background, is ‘working-class identified’ but now ostensibly middle class, and has herself experienced dis-ablement through illness. However, I can only represent my own views here and cannot begin to pretend to speak for others outside the identity categories I inhabit. Nor will I hide the fact that part of my identity has been formed from within a specific set of cultural debates and clashes in relation to visual representation, which embrace feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis. However, I do not occupy a ‘correct position’, nor do I wish to be dogmatic, but am interested that it should be possible to have a dialogue in which we all learn from each other. I have not come here to be preached to, nor do I intend to preach.
and its relationship to power and powerlessness. In that respect I speak with forked tongue as, like many others, I consider myself to have a foot in both camps. As a practising photographer and
