ABSTRACT
This chapter examines visual narratives of the declared “refugee crisis” in/of Europe (2015–2021). It juxtaposes participatory photography with (non-)citizen/refugee journalism in conditions of perpetual displacement in Lesvos and Athens, Greece. We trace the shift from spectacle and hypervisibility (2015–2018, when the “crisis” was first declared), to state-enforced media blackouts, photography bans, censorship, criminalization, and carceral encampment (2019–). How does (non-)citizen/refugee photography counter the so-called “compassion fatigue” that has set in six years on? How does photography by people on the move act as a witness that seeks witnesses, interpellating us as spectators of photographs who actively assume their responsibility to “watch” photographs?
