ABSTRACT
In the modern world the local has given way to the global, physical presence to visual media, and witnessing to spectatorship. The photograph has accrued central importance as ‘evidence’ of faraway events; and it also plays a critical role in the construction of a territorial and bordered national imaginary. This chapter examines the nature of its ‘truth claim’ in the depiction of the violence in trans-border people’s lives and what makes it antithetical to responsible action. It compares this with the ‘truth’ of witnessing and argues that connecting with the other across borders becomes an act of connecting with oneself, an act that involves a transformation of subjectivity.
