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  Analysis

 

The clustering of photographs around specific time periods, especially during the late 1970s and early 1980s during the lead-up to the International Year of Disabled Persons, suggests that the UN Photo dataset can be divided into distinct eras, each distinguishable visually and by subject and sensibility. I defined these periods as: Immediate Postwar (1945-1975); 1976-1981, including the IYDP; 1982-1999; and Millenium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals (2000-Present).

The photographs of the immediate postwar era are characterized by a focus on post-conflict rebuilding, showcasing mostly children and veterans, especially from the Korean War. Korea was the first major conflict involving the UN apparatus, and the first test of the UN ideal of mutual international dialogue, understanding, and cooperation to solve global crises. These photographs are part of the UN’s larger motivation in its early years to showcase the function and ability of the global organization to administer aid and respond appropriately and efficiently to crises. They are meant as a visual record of UN ideals in action, and pictures depicting physical rehabilitation centers in Korea, and the receipt of generous donations, are included in order to convey a sense of attainable success.

The photographs are relatively few in number – there are 16 that encompass disability in postwar Europe and Korea. In the early days of the UN, given the globe’s immediate physical, infrastructural, and political environment, disability was seen almost exclusively within a framework of military conflict and veterans. In the eyes of the UN’s visual media apparatus, disability was only one aspect of the long, multifaceted, and international challenge of rebuilding.

The post-Korean War era’s comparative lull in photographs on disability, as reflected in the graph Keyword Prevalence over Time, suggest that disability documentation fell from the list of UN priorities during this period, and faded from public consciousness following the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and Korea. Twelve photographs, half of which were taken at the Cortbawi Centre in Lebanon in 1961, represent the entirety of the UN Photo Library’s record on disability between 1957 and 1975.

Presenting “representatives” of the disabled:
Norwegian athlete Karl Henrik Seeman visits the UN Headquarters.
Photo presented as part of the 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons.
Permalink to UN Photo Library » While returning maimed and injured veterans played an important role in changing global demographics, their visibility in the cultural landscape remained curtailed. In the United States, the disabled were frequently institutionalized during this era, sequestered from public view. Many so-called “normal” citizens of the West rarely had contact with the “crippled,” intensifying perceptions of the disabled as freaks and objects of pity. Without visibility, and rarely given a platform to be heard, the disabled were largely ignored. Only in the 1980s did the disabled begin getting deinstitutionalized in large numbers. This trend is perhaps reflected in the gap in the UN photo record, and the spike in photographs in the late 1970s. Political consciousness, and the consolidation of “the disabled” as a political identity, was forming by 1970s. Bloody wars of independence during global decolonization reminded the Western world of the human cost of military conflict - images of injured veterans and maimed civilians in the “Third World” were relayed over and over again on television, a new technological development that fundamentally altered the observer’s moral relationship with “suffering” around the world. In the US, veterans, such as those in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, were already a highly visible and vocal group, with a mutual political identity. Disability from combat injuries was an important visual in protest, and unavoidable by the greater public.

The UN’s renewed interest in disability in the late 1970s suggests that the organization was responding to a zeitgeist of era with the IYDP. Pictures from the UN’s IYDP era (1976-1981) are characterized by a depiction of children and others in various different settings. Under the theme of “full participation” for all, there is a greater effort in trying to showcase the disabled living “ordinary lives”, from weaving to reading and playing sports. However, disability is still often depicted within the medical, health, and clinical setting - the context of these photos is presented as about fixing something wrong. An entire series of photographs depicts “the disabled” lying in bed as a caretaker oversees them. Furthermore, pictures of “disability” also don’t necessarily depict the disabled community. There are pictures of preventative measures, from prenatal care to polio vaccinations, and thus, disability seems to become more an abstract concept like “stunting” or “malnutrition” than a group with an identity. This anonymization of subjects is compounded by the UN’s tendency to keep the subjects of the photos unnamed. Captions often read “a mother” or “a disabled child,” without an indication of an individual identity. Is this to convey a sense of universality in the global issues depicted? Or are these people meant to simply be collective human manifestations of an abstract global problem (i.e. poster children)?

The geographic breakdown of the UN Photo Library’s IYDP photographs, as seen in Photographs per Country IYDP, indicates that whether or not universality was the goal, the ethnicities and populations depicted to represent the face of disability around the world are not diverse. The majority of those depicted are from South and Southeast Asia or Latin America, most notably Bangladesh, India, Burma, and Ecuador. There are a few outliers, such as Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, and Australia. Yet they make up only seven of 62 photographs of the IYDP. The US also has a large proportion of the pictures, with 11, but they differ in the type of picture depicted. They are mostly taken in New York, and in conjunction with the three photographs taken at the UN Headquarters, these images, for the most part, depict the disabled in formal settings (e.g. at a UN conference) and children and adults participating in sports and school. They are the success stories of disabled integration into society, made possible by modern rehabilitation and support infrastructure – the goodwill and charity of well-meaning structures. The contrast between what is presented as the goal – pictures from the West – and the face of the problem that warrant charity – pictures from the Global South – is stark. And this disproportionate number of pictures of disability that depict communities of color is true across all time periods from the dataset. As Sheet 12 and the pie charts in Photographs per Country in Respective Geographic Region demonstrate, the face of disability “in the field” has often been one from Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, or Latin America and the Caribbean.

There is another lull in photographs on disability following the IYDP, indicating institutional and public fatigue over the topic after an entire year devoted to the cause.

The current post-2000 spike in photographs on disability represents the most drastic change in the composition and sensibilities of the images. Photographs from this era are predominately from conferences, with many photographs depicting officials in suits. Some are headshots of various chairmen of committees. And as part of a campaign to showcase the UN’s stance on providing the disabled with self-determination, we see more disabled speakers on stage - having more of a say. While “in the field” photographs are still taken, these are pictures of people in “sophisticated” settings: conference rooms, social events, and art exhibitions. There’s a visible change in perspective here. There’s a greater emphasis on the behind-the-scenes, bureaucratic efforts on the issue of disability: humanitarianism based on mass social media awareness campaigns.

Furthermore, the resurgence of visual media on disability after the new millennium coincides with the UN’s conscious effort to consolidate a visual brand for the organization during Kofi Annan’s tenure as Secretary General. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that followed, came with the UN’s greater sensitivity to producing visually striking content that could be easily disseminated, retweeted, shared, and comprehended by a mass audience. Striking graphics and icons depicting key target goals for UN member states, from eliminating poverty to providing gender equality became tools for the humanitarian imagery of the 21st century – attainable success through mostly passive means. There is indeed a sense that the UN’s contemporary pictures of disability are part of a unified visual identity. The backdrop of conferences on disability and headshots always feature the easily recognized UN sky blue color scheme, the SDGs logo, or the UN logo.