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Conclusion
This research serves as a contribution to the intersectional perspectives that must be included and understood in the current forms of epistemology. The visual autoethnographic method employed has illustrated the need for further insight to understand the reach and impact of visual communication design practices. Again, it is important to recognize the urgency for embodied knowledge to better understand our current surroundings. Furthermore, the resulting reflections and analysis show how digital stock photography is contributing to the neocolonialism of visual communication and culture in urban Guatemalan spaces. Correspondingly, these visual consequences are backed by the theoretical framework in which they unwrap–which include the emergence of stock photography and the use of digital media as a colonization alternative–and my own embodied experiences as a person of colour. Conclusively, it is understood through the results that stock photography, dominated by hegemonic western perspectives, is used as a tool for visual neocolonialism.
As I have clarified before, with this research I do not intend to provide a solution to the neocolonialism being enforced through the mass distribution and usage of stock photography–but I intent to criticize it and shed light on a complex issue that must be addressed. I also do not mean to imply that people of colour should be incorporated into stock photography more often or that there should be more diverse subjects in the marketing databases. After all, stock photography has been created to cover the needs that western capitalism has created. Hence, asking for more diversity on the digital stock photography banks would imply that I too would like to see POC representation in the neoliberal materialistic and individualistic needs–that is not the case.
Ideally, this research has proven that visual communication design needs to be revaluated and redesigned to challenge the current hegemonic systems. By means of criticism it has also introduced a request for revaluating those systems, which exist in a discipline that has a long colonial and Eurocentric history. Immediately, it encourages visual communication designers to practice context awareness that extends to the ethics of the visuals employed in their daily efforts. On this topic, I would like to make reference to a reflection by Sarhandi: “If designers, art directors and their media colleagues are the ‘gatekeepers of a country’s self-image’, as has often been said, judged by their collective oeuvre, rather than the genuinely well intentioned words of a few conscientious individuals, the majority of them seem at best to be sleeping on duty, at worst willfully participating in the perfidious degradation of the majority of the population.” (39).
I believe that through the recognition of our experiences as true knowledge we shall question and challenge the background histories of our current circumstances. Throughout this research, showing my open wounds to the colonial histories has been a painfully healing experience. Moreover, I trust that I exit this process with a new level of empowerment and a type of self-awareness that does not burden my skin anymore–ultimately, I hope this knowledge format will help others heal. Conclusively, I would like to urge visual communication designers to actively incorporate decolonial attitudes in their practice. Most importantly, I encourage people that have been oppressed and dismissed by Eurocentric ideologies and representations to seek empowerment through their own discriminative life experiences and enlighten the current dogmatic structures around them.
Further Research
Naturally, the extension of this research is narrow in comparison to the histories and social issues it involves. Therefore, I believe that there is much more to be analysed from an autoethnographic or visual research perspective. In addition, that the same research format is needed from other sides of the periphery of the world and from other intersectional perspectives. Furthermore, I have three main suggestions for further research. Firstly, the use of gender as a visual tool of oppression and manipulation– shortly referred to in the analysis chapter. Secondly, the issue of sacrosanct conventional or conservative graphic elements, which seem to emulate western tradition exclusively. Lastly, I deeply encourage further research to take place around indigenous futures and the ways that decolonization practices can concretely intervene in the cyber spaces and ultimately manifest in the physical spaces.
