Decolonization of the
self: Visual Autoethnography
“The only possible opening for a statement of this kind is that I detest writing. The process itself epitomizes the European concept of "legitimate" thinking; what is written has an importance that is denied the spoken (…) I don't really care whether my words reach whites or not. They have already demonstrated through their history that they cannot hear, cannot see; they can only read.” (Russel Means. For America to Live, Europe Must Die.)
I acknowledge that my upbringing, education, and the hegemonic state of the culture in which that same upbringing took place discarded embodied knowledge and labelled it as merely mystical compared to written knowledge. I acknowledge that this mentality still hovers over my immediate understanding and requires conscious decolonial practices to not devalue any knowledge outside of the imperialistic ways of academia. Accordingly, the ways of postcolonial practice I intend to follow endorse a heterodox approach that identify problems that could not be understood in its totality from the colonial perspective and encourage to think from the periphery of the world (Anástacio 2). Through these acknowledgements, I challenge myself to recognize my own life experiences as valid knowledge.
I will employ Visual Autoethnography as a research methodology. Autoethnography falls away from conventional solutionism and lies between research and expression, providing critical commentary, insights formed from a different perspective and elaborations on particular social material relations (Schouwenberg and Kaethler 13). “Autoethnography can be distinguished by how it affords authors the flexibility to position themselves in relation to the social, cultural, or political in ways that are otherwise off-limits to traditional empirical approaches to qualitative research” (Hughes & Pennington 9). This method is known for presenting different perspectives from a decentralized point of view and therefore, guiding the reader through a personal narrative. By extension, autoethnography has not only granted me the opportunity to look outside of the conventionality and rigidness expected from academic research but has also encouraged me to value my own embodied experience as a source of knowledge–thus creating further decentralized contributions to relevant visual and social phenomena that are overlooked because of their emotional nature.
In their book ‘Doing Visual Ethnography’ Sarah Pink suggests that in Visual Autoethnography, the balanced relationship between aesthetic force and written argument is of utmost importance (244). Therefore, I will use my practice as a visual communication designer to complement the sequence of autoethnographic research with visual narratives. I have decided to define my current practice as visual communication design because it naturally extends to the use of tools and disciplines like illustration, animation, and photography; however, the ultimate purpose is always visual communication. Hence, the combination of self-taken photographs, archived family pictures, images from the internet, layout design and written critical and personal narratives will help construct the visual autoethnographic research that this phenomenon demands. Significantly, the methodology will work with the support of the theoretical framework and its academic foundation to further contextualize the narrative’s composition. In addition, the autoethnographic text will guide the reader through the visual narrative and vice-versa, furthermore, it will be authenticated by the facts and histories exposed in the theoretical framework chapter.
Through this research, I intend to provide explicit insight into a visual phenomenon that inhabits Guatemalan urban spaces. I refer to this phenomenon as the Cyber West manifested in the Corporeal rest, which entails new forms of visual neo-colonization. This includes the invasion of western stock photography–archived online–in the physical spaces of the periphery of the world, thus colonizing physically (and digitally) through the cyber world. It intersects various colonial, neoliberal, and hegemonic systems to make sense of the current condition of the colonized visual culture in urban spaces. Moreover, the phenomenon I am attempting to describe in this research is not isolated, due to its globalized and hegemonic essence, I believe it reproduces itself in many spaces around the so-called periphery of the world.
One of the main reasons why I chose visual autoethnography to conduct my research, is the resonance that the methodology has with the decolonial approach I believe is necessary to deal with the intersectional issues that arise from the relationship between society and visual communication design. There are not enough diverse voices heard and perspectives seen on the western side of dichotomy–there is a big need to give more representation and relevance to a non-western gaze to visual communication design–and in effect provide a broader understanding of our surroundings and a deeper awareness of the current systems. We are the vessels that travel through all the content and the infrastructure that has been built around us. We are the ones absorbing the impact and recollecting our experiences; we are the end result–therefore we are more than qualified to create knowledge and enlighten those that have created and assembled the systems we live by.
Fluchtpunkt
Figure 9. My intersectional position.
The Autoethnographic process is not only an effort of collecting, researching, and learning, but it also involves reflecting, forgiving and un-learning. As it has been perceived throughout this thesis, the topic of skin tone discrimination is dear to me–it is an ever-healing wound and anxiety that has surrounded me for as long as I can remember. Through this personal narrative, I encourage the reader to find their intersectional position (see fig. 9) through intersectional feminism (Crenshaw) and approach this phenomenon from a perspective of recognition and self-awareness. Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that despite my visual autoethnographic method, these experiences, emotions, and relationships are not isolated nor are they specific to my condition alone. Certainly, my position is my own and the details of the environment in which these experiences unfolded are particular to my situation. However, the essence of this research is to criticize the phenomenon that manifests in many societies in comparable circumstances–and by doing so, urge readers to become aware and acknowledge the systematic discriminations in visual communication design and its roots. Ultimately, I am aware that this is an issue that plays a role in many people’s lives on very different levels–to some, it is a level of comfort, and to others, it is a level of isolation. Therefore, I would like to believe that this narrative will be able to communicate the level of discomfort that has been systematically implemented in isolated lives.
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India:
Personal Background
Figure 10. Me and my grandpa outside of a church at his hometown, Cobán (Q´eqchi´: Kob´an). 2008.
On one occasion, during my first year abroad I got into a texting fight with one of my close friends from back home. We went to high school together, but we didn’t see each other often after I graduated and moved away. We got into a fight through WhatsApp because she derogatorily referred to the indigenous peoples of Guatemala as Indians during our conversation and I reacted accordingly disturbed. As it happens, my then friend is white, and I was very insecure and defensive of my own skin colour and the indigenous heritage that was the source of it. More explicitly, the word ‘indio’ in many Latin American countries is known for its derogatory use against indigenous people (Fresan), or people that have indigenous features. It is said to be what Christopher Columbus called the First Peoples when he arrived in America. The word is very colloquially and interchangeably used in Guatemala City and tends to refer to someone that is rude, ignorant or that has an indigenous appearance. Henceforth, the use of ‘Indio’ is one of many examples of colourism among Guatemalan citizens–and it clearly displays the difficulty of being born indigenous in a country that has been systematized to serve the West.
Figure 11. Me at my piano teacher’s waiting room, holding my favourite doll at the time. 2004.
Beneath the two white men, as a child of colour, I take motherly care of my beautiful white doll that looks nothing like me. The indigenous pattern is there, I have seen it and I am familiar with it, but I do not tend to look down and get closer–it lays there, under the feet of the Christian angel.
As shown in the theoretical framework, the combination of neoliberalism and western glorification corners any relationship with indigenous peoples into a condition of shame or tokenism. While I was growing up in Guatemala, the aspiration for whiteness was extremely toxic, and inescapable. It is important to keep in mind that neoliberalism has absorbed most of visual communication in public urban spaces through advertising–and therefore has invaded visual culture. In addition, the dogmatic relationship between the US and Guatemala had a great effect on what technologies were available and what popular culture looked like, which included the expansion of American culture through the internet and digital colonialism. Consequently, the message of whiteness as a standard came through all mediums, from visual culture to interactions with classmates. For this reason, it is evident that most white people in Guatemala have a very different everyday experience of the city by means of the privilege that comes with their heritage. In other words, Guatemalan people with European features and white skin tend to receive a more positive experience in the urban spaces through interactions with other citizens and the visual culture surrounding them. By contrast, indigenous cultures, and peoples–when not being diminished or exploited–are mostly used as a token of Guatemalan identity, but never given enough relevance or representation.
As an example, Fig. 11 exhibits a layout of how visual subjects were given importance in my daily context. First, a big frame high-up on the wall idolizes two white men, which is a very familiar scenario for my child self. Secondly, my white, blonde doll–which I carried around and took care of–was fitting with the praise and representation of white beauty practised in Guatemala; it was also an extension of the messages I was receiving from the society and the visual culture surrounding me. Lastly, an indigenous pattern is used as a decorative piece down on the coffee table, beneath the wooden angel and blue ceramics. To sum up, the layout hierarchy in the picture, is a suitable display and metaphor of the expected roles from what each of the elements represent, including myself.
Figure 12. My 7th birthday, 2003
1. Lula (Grandma): Scottish/Spanish heritage
2. Lulo (Grandpa): Indigenous/Spanish heritage.
3. Tía (Aunt): Scottish/Spanish/Indigenous heritage.
4. Me: Indigenous/ Spanish/ Scottish/ Filipino heritage.
My family is very mixed when it comes to ethnicity (fig. 12) and that is something that formed a feeling of pride in me for a very long time. However, I was the one with the darkest skin in the family after my grandfather, and that made me question my appearance. I would see my white family members and ask my mum with a kind of despair: “why am I so dark?”. Naturally, my mum would assure me that my skin colour was beautiful, on the contrary, the people and society around me would not let me believe it. Conversely, the glorification of the west constantly manifested itself in the visual representations that, still to this day, surround Guatemalan people and preach a discourse of whiteness; not only as aspirational but also as normal. This is exemplified through the overbearing neoliberal nature of advertising and its use of western stock photography. In effect, in almost all images that were exhibited in my city, I could not see someone that looked like me. Eventually, this phenomenon led me to wonder if I was in the wrong by being born so dark. I felt more than underrepresented, I felt unwelcomed. Henceforth, as a child, I empirically understood from my surroundings that my life would’ve been better if I was born white.
At times I wondered; how different my life would be if my skin colour was white: would I be more confident? Would I have more friends? Would I be more attractive, and would my self-esteem be better? Would I have gotten the things I wanted?
Currently, the self-deprecation that people of indigenous heritage in the urban spaces apply on themselves comes naturally in the postcolonial neoliberal state of Guatemala. The classism and hierarchy inherited from colonialism combined with the individualism provided by the neoliberal systems result in a net of self-criticism that leads to internalized oppression. Along the same lines, my mixed heritage granted me a heterogenous phenotype, including a dark skin tone; as a result, this feature negatively defined several aspects of my life as I grew up, especially the way I viewed myself. Nonetheless, I had a very different position in life, that included the privilege of being born into a middle-class, diverse family that permitted me to have private education and economic stability–which is something most indigenous peoples in Guatemala are denied by the systematic obstacles placed in their lives by the ruling dichotomy. However, my experience serves to exemplify how the mere association with indigenous heritage through my skin colour was enough to define the way I was perceived, and perceived myself, based on the visual representations covering the spaces I moved through.
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Neo-colonial -Liberal Landscapes: Evidencing Visual Neo-colonialism
through Guatemala
Figure 13. A neoliberal landscape; Sán Cristóbal and the water volcanoe. 2022.
San Cristóbal is a city situated right next to Guatemala City, they are both inside the metropolitan area and the department of Guatemala. The main boulevard of San Cristóbal is recurred by millions of people every week–it is one of the main arteries of the Guatemalan urban spaces and one of the greatest portrayals of the current condition of public visual culture. Therefore, I have decided to use portions of this boulevard to exemplify the colonization of visual culture in Guatemalan urban spaces. Furthermore, the house I grew up in is on the border between Guatemala and San Cristóbal, and alongside the boulevard. Naturally, the main boulevard of San Cristóbal was one of the spaces I recurred the most while living in Guatemala and therefore developed a cognizance of its visual and social tapestry along the years.
The following analysis is based on my own experience of Guatemala interlaced with the street view tool on Google Maps (Google), which is an engine that allows the user to drop themselves into the streets that have been photographed by Google. I am using this cyber environment as a method to support the evidence of the Cyber West manifested in the Corporeal Rest. Significantly, these maps are attainable to any user who has access to an internet browser and connection–therefore it serves as a remote vision into the physical reality through the cyber dimension (see fig. 14).
Figure 14. How Google Maps Street View tool permits access to the physical Rest through the Cyber West.
The images of Street View available at the time of this research were taken by Google in 2016. In the following sample I will make use of the parts of the street that were photographed with enough clarity, and which are useful to evidence the phenomenon in question. However, I invite the reader to go through the digitalized (or physical) street and make a personal analysis based on the information provided so far.
Figure 15. Google Maps. “Blvr.
Principal de Cdad. San Cristóbal, 14.599194246357206, -90.57897535604361”, July 2016. Google Maps, https://goo.gl/maps/2wUEcBQ2CHY4hnqy6. Author’s screenshot.1. A Billboard using stock photography (see fig. 16).
2. A ‘Microbus’, a commonly used private collective transportation.
3. ‘Kloster’ A Guatemalan restaurant famous for serving swiss fondue.
4. Scarlett Johansson, a US celebrity, posing for Huawei’s campaign (see fig. 17)
Figure 16. Dualshock. “Sexy woman eating red apple, sensual red lips.” Depositphotos, 4th of February 2015, Russia. www.depositphotos.com/64032811/stock-photo-sexy-woman-eating-red-apple.html.
There are many indicators concerning the state of neo-colonialism of visual culture in Guatemalan public urban spaces. At the onset, the overview of the picture (fig. 15) transmits the overwhelming amount of visual communication bombardment that is dominated by advertising. Hence, several high structures built along the road are meant exclusively for advertisement display. Blocking the view of the mountains, these billboards evidence the neoliberal hold on the public spaces and the visual hierarchy of urban priorities. On top of the layer of billboards, we find pictures that reflect the Eurocentric representation of realities and peoples, including the pedestrian bridge which displays US actress Scarlett Johansson posing with a Huawei mobile phone (fig. 17) and the ad for a swiss fondue restaurant. Furthermore, the images displayed on these neoliberal structures, preach a message of western ideals that collide with the Guatemalan realities (fig. 18) and produce neoliberal landscapes. By design, we are meant to look directly into the marketing visuals and pretend that our exploited mountains do not surround us anymore–we are told we can live our western fantasies, but the West forgets they have taken the means to do so. Guatemala does not wholly exist in neoliberalism, but it certainly exists for it.
Figure 18. Google Maps. “Blvr. Principal de Cdad. San Cristóbal, 14.59930326219015, -90.57898608399177”, July 2016. Google Maps, https://goo.gl/maps/BsP7cBvUeNxEQroS6. Author’s screenshot.
Figure 19. Depositphotos. ”Stockfotografie Kosmetik: lizenzfreie Fotos.” Depositphotos, 23. Aug. 2011, Ukraine. www.de.depositphotos.com/6482470/stock-photo-cosmetics.html.
Furthermore, I would like to demonstrate the Cyber West manifested in the Corporeal Rest in more recent examples. The pictures displayed from this point forward, have been taken by my smartphone and me during our recent visits to Guatemala City–during those visits I kept building an archive of visual representations of the phenomenon of visual neocolonialism through stock photography. The first occasion took place between the 18th of March and the 10th of April 2021. The second occasion took place from the 21st of December 2021 to the 12th of January 2022.
Figure 20. “Free Q1,000 for the Supermarket!”. Picture of
a poster I found in Parque las Americas shopping centre in Guatemala
City. 2021. Figure 21. Drobot, Dean. “Full length portrait of happy excited couple with shopping trolley running to market store, pointing fingers at camera and having fun together, isolated over white background. Full length portrait of excited attractive couple, woman and man customer customer customer consumer, running in retail supermarket, pointing fingers up, isolated on white background.” 123rf, Ukraine. www.123rf.com/photo_93819557_full-length-portrait-of-an-excited-couple-running-with-a-supermarket-trolley-and-pointing-fingers-is.html.
Figure 22. Guatemalan local business, Cemaco,
christmas advertisement behind a local taqueria. Picture taken in Zone 15,
Guatemala City. April 2021.Figure 23. Vladans. “Family having Christmas dinner at home, gathered around the table, enjoying their time together; mother and father giving Christmas present to their son and kissing him”, Istock, 21 September 2020. https://www.istockphoto.com/es/foto/padres-dando-regalo-de-navidad-a-su-hijo-gm1272801619-374965124
Figure 24. Picture taken in Shopping Centre Miraflores, Guatemala City. March 2021.
Figure 24. is interesting from the standpoint of graphic design software. The image manipulation to create the effect of a mask mark on the person’s face acknowledges the matter that skin colour in stock photography is, indeed, a choice. It brings to attention that the technologies to create such tone alterations are widely available. However, this is not to imply that white models should be altered to look like people of colour but to highlight the reach of visual technologies. Ultimately, in the context of this image, the alteration worked towards the representation of a white person, despite the effort involved in altering the skin colour. Additionally, the capacity for visual manipulation is not only evident in photography, but also in vector images (see fig. 25 and fig. 26) which are a big part of visual communication. Vector images are by design fully editable, i.e., changing the colour of a vector is almost effortless.
Figure 25. Vector image used in Coronavirus information graphics, located in local shopping centre Oakland Mall. March 2021.
Figure 26. Vector image used in Coronavirus information graphics, located in local shopping centre Oakland Mall. March 2021.
Figure 27. Indigenous woman walking with a basket on her head–a picture of a white woman holding a smartphone looms over her. Picture taken on the way to Atitlán, Guatemala. 2021.
Figure 28. Dean Drobot. “Image of excited young woman standing isolated over yellow background chatting by mobile phone. Looking camera.”, Shutterstock. www.shutterstock.com/fi/image-photo/image-excited-young-woman-standing-isolated-1076790932.
Simultaneously, the rural areas in Guatemala do not escape the hold of the neocolonial processes. Fig. 27 exhibits the collision between the indigenous and the Eurocentric. On my way to Atitlán, the expansion and reach of the neoliberal systems become evident in the more sparsely populated areas with more indigenous people. Once again, stock photography fails to acknowledge its surroundings but excels at representing western ideals. It is worth noticing that there are existing projects and initiatives that are fighting this immediate representation issue, for example:
www.worldwhiteweb.net/
ww.nappy.co/
www.pocstock.com
to name but a few.
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