ABSTRACT
This contribution focuses on the multiple roles of the photographic (self-)portraits taken in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the context of migration within the African continent. In part a response to the renewed interest in photographically portraying African migrants living in Johannesburg that has arisen since the so-called xenophobic attacks in 2008,1 this essay examines how photographic (self-)portraits are used, which photographs circulate and how people are affected and perhaps afflicted by certain photographic practices. Inextricably linked to this are the discursive “framings” (Butler 2009) of these photographs – what is visible within certain frames and what is cropped out of the frame. It is often argued that African migrants inhabit a discursive space that is contradictorily marked by both invisibility and hyper-visibility (for example, Carter 2010; Gutberlet and Helff 2011). Their everyday lives are generally assumed to be invisible to mainstream society, whereas they become highly visible as deviant others, associated with crime or faced with dire
circumstances like overcrowding, poverty, hunger, assault and rape.2 Female African migrants are often framed by discourses of trafficking and sex work (Palmary 2010; Bahl, Hess, and Ginal 2010).3
