The Impossible Portrait: Networked Image-events, Counter-bureaucratic traces, and Anti-Blackness in Delhi, India

Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan

doi:10.1111/var.12296

The Impossible Portrait: Networked Image-events, Counter-bureaucratic traces, and Anti-Blackness in Delhi, India

Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article focuses on a portrait of a young Somali man living in Delhi, India. The portrait depicts him in a park in South Delhi wearing a cap distributed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) during their insurgent 2012-2013 campaign to establish themselves as an alternative political force. I argue this parodic portrait and the text it accrues in its circulations on Facebook functions as a networked image-event that evinces the impossible contradictions that Somalis face in India. Tracing this networked image event reveals how a surging antiblackness linked to the rise of the AAP Party in Delhi punctuates the in-betweenness that Somalis experience while they wait for life elsewhere.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	230-248
Number of pages	19
Journal	Visual Anthropology Review
Volume	39
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12296
State	Published - Mar 1 2023

Keywords

Anti-Blackness
India
refugee

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Anthropology
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

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10.1111/var.12296

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The Impossible Portrait: Networked Image-events, Counter-bureaucratic traces, and Anti-Blackness in Delhi, India

Abstract

Keywords

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