The civil contract of photography

This is an account of the power relations that sustain and make possible photographic meanings, with special attention to photographs of Palestinian noncitizens of Israel and women in Western societies. "Azoulay argues that photography is a particular set of relations between individuals to the power that governs them, and, at the same time, a form of relations among equal individuals that constrains this power. Her book shows how anyone, even a stateless person, who addresses others through photographs or occupies the position of a photograph's addressee, is or can become a citizen in the citizenry of photography. The civil contract of photography enables him or her to share with others the claim made or addressed by the photograph. But the crucial arguments of the book concern two groups whose vulnerability and flawed citizenship have been rendered invisible due to their state of exception: the Palestinian noncitizens of Israel and women in Western societies. What they share is an exposure to injuries of various kinds and the impossibility of photographic statements of their plight from ever becoming claims of emergency and calls for protection. Thus one of her leading questions