Visualizing Race, Identity, and ChangePosted in Articles, Arts, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, United States on 2013-09-23 01:06Z by Steven |
Visualizing Race, Identity, and Change
Proof
National Geographic
2013-09-17
Michele Norris, Guest Contributor
Proof is National Geographic’s new online photography experience. It was launched to engage ongoing conversations about photography, art, and journalism. In addition to featuring selections from the magazine and other publications, books, and galleries, this site will offer new avenues for our audience to get a behind-the-scenes look at the National Geographic storytelling process. We view this as a work in progress and welcome feedback as the site evolves. We can be reached at proof@ngs.org.
A feature in National Geographic‘s October 125th anniversary issue looks at the changing face of America in an article by Lise Funderburg, with portraits of multiracial families by Martin Schoeller, that celebrates the beauty of multiracial diversity and shows the limitations around our current categories when talking about race.
In many ways race is about difference and how those differences are codified through language, categories, boxes, segmentation, and even the implicit sorting that goes on in our heads in terms of the way we label others and even ourselves.
Appearance and identity are most certainly linked when it comes to racial categories, but there is another important ingredient in that stew: Experience. There is no room for that on those official census forms, but when a person picks up a writing instrument to choose which box they check, experience most certainly helps guide their hand…
Read the article and view the photographs here.