ABSTRACT
As a non-anthropologist, I’ve spent many years doing social documentary work that is very similar to that of anthropologists, recording and editing oral histories and taking photographs. The purpose of this work is to help document social reality as a participant in movements for social change. In this article, I describe the reasons for beginning this work, and the cooperative relationships developed with social movement organizations, from unions to migrant rights organizations. As I do this work I try to balance a commitment to the work itself – the aesthetics of photographs and the faithfulness and emotional power of narratives – and a commitment to producing work that has the power to move people and participate in using it to those ends. The article, therefore, describes the personal journey of one person doing this work, in a way that may be relevant to the experience of others.
