ABSTRACT
This chapter explores and opens discourse on the ambivalence of photography as the principal medium to transport Bangladeshi nationalist feelings, nationalism, and nationalistic identity of post-71 Bangladesh and beyond. It neither seeks to portray the complexity of Bangladesh’s multifaceted history nor construct a new historiography. It analyses the dynamic dualities of photographs, photographic processes, and archives through the implied contrasts – singular versus collective, past versus present, personal versus public, death versus life, static versus kinetic, latent versus manifest, invisible versus visible, inside versus outside – and more. These essential underlying and fluctuating binaries are embedded in photographs and archival mediums. This chapter addresses these issues and explores the vacillating performance and potency of photography in the creation of a collective identity, nationalism, and nationalistic culture in postwar, post-71 Bangladesh. It is, therefore, neither a response nor a solution, but it engages with various facets of photography. Hence, the kernel of the chapter aims to establish photography as one of the core elements that drive Bangladesh’s post-71 nationalism today.
