Visual Ethnography
Volume 5, Issue 1, 2016, Pages 187-201

Bitter oranges. African migrant workers in Calabria (Article)

Reiners D. , Reckinger C. , Reckinger G.
  • a University of Innsbruck, Austria
  • b University of Innsbruck, Austria
  • c University of Innsbruck, Austria

Abstract

The working conditions of African labourers in Calabria are characterized by severe precariousness, exploitation and poor remuneration, which lead to deplorable living conditions. Thousands of migrant workers live in unheated tent camps and makeshift barracks. The catastrophic living and working conditions of orange pickers in Calabria are widely unknown to the general public. The Bitter Oranges project combines documentary photography, self-representation and short captions explaining the economic and political conditions that provide a framework to the visual ethnographic material. The goal of the visual ethnographic exhibition is to show the widely ignored working and living conditions of African migrants in Southern Italy to a broad public all over Europe. The exhibition responds to one of the urgent needs migrants in Calabria's camps expressed: to overcome the structural and epistemological violence of their hidden and unseen exploitation. The participatory approach of this visual anthropological study further aims to render "voicing" possible: giving the people the means to photographically document their destitute everyday living conditions. Finally, this visual anthropological study aims to empower people who are ostracized and forced to live at the margins of European society by offering the opportunity to represent themselves and gain a public platform. This exhibition contributes to a decolonized gaze, putting a focus on people's agency despite the slave-like conditions that are imposed on them structurally.

Author Keywords

deprivation Visual ethnography Postcolonial perspective Participatory action research (PAR) Photovoice Refugees Inequality African migrants Precariousness

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84981210497&doi=10.12835%2fve2016.1-0063&partnerID=40&md5=7378a4e035d30dfc096b11f88e6914d8

DOI: 10.12835/ve2016.1-0063
ISSN: 22811605
Cited by: 1
Original Language: English