ABSTRACT
Since the arrival of photography in the region that would become Southeast Asia, its practitioners have created photo communities of different forms and functions. Beginning with an open-ended definition of “communities,” this chapter proposes a typology of four kinds of photo communities that have emerged in the region. They include: (1) photo societies that promoted salon photography; (2) communities that proposed other ways of pursuing photographic art; (3) communities relating to education initiatives; and (4) communities that emerged for the politics of representation. Needless to say, the function of the typology is to serve as a framework of analysis and comparison; it is not meant to be exhaustive. At the end of the chapter, I briefly mention other community-making initiatives that have eluded the present study.
