Humanitarian Photography Beyond the Picture: David “CHIM” Seymour’s Children of Europe

in Allender, Tim; Dussel, Inés; Grosvenor, Ian (Eds.) et al Appearances Matter: The Visual in Educational History (2021)

This book chapter concentrates on photography as a technology that goes beyond the image. The chapter looks at documentary photography as an institutional and material practice of humanitarian ... [more ▼]

This book chapter concentrates on photography as a technology that goes beyond the image. The chapter looks at documentary photography as an institutional and material practice of humanitarian ‘propaganda’ and discusses how notions of childhood intensified the urgency of humanitarian campaigns. It analyzes how UNESCO carefully selected and edited David Seymour’s photographs of children of war-devasted Europe, and how the organization adapted and exploited his photographs for its own ends. Besides tracing these practices of meaning making, the chapter also looks at the itinerary of one of Seymour’s most fascinating photographs and the different stories that have evolved around it to the present day. In a nutshell, the essay suggests that photographs, by both providing information and stimulating imagination, become actors of meaning making and storytelling. Photographs did not only help UNESCO manage public consent and add urgency to humanitarian causes; they also triggered public debate on social media, cooperated in historical research, and inspired literary work. [less ▲]

The Eye of the Machine: Labor Sciences and the Mechanical Registration of the Human Body

in Priem, Karin; Herman, Frederik (Eds.) Fabricating Modern Societies: Education, Bodies, and Minds in the Age of Steel (2019)

Images of Industrial Life and Vocational Training: Scouting as a Liminal Space for Educating a Workers’ Elite in 1920s Luxembourg

in History of Education (2019)

This paper looks at a specific set of corporate images, namely photographs of apprentices of the Luxembourg steel conglomerate ARBED, and analyzes how young workers are depicted in these images. The paper ... [more ▼]

This paper looks at a specific set of corporate images, namely photographs of apprentices of the Luxembourg steel conglomerate ARBED, and analyzes how young workers are depicted in these images. The paper draws on a collection of 2,251 glass plate negatives (re)presenting ARBED’s industrial cosmos, including its vocational school the Institut Emile Metz. The roughly 160 images of apprentices contained in the collection put on display the apprentices’ bodies and a variety of activities in different contexts. The images’ contents testify to the institute’s programmatic hybridity and the constant (re-)mix of formal and semi-formal learning activities intended to educate natural, urban, mobile and communal men and future workers. Our focus is on Boy Scouts activities in a variety of different environments, which have functioned as a liminal space for educating a workers’ elite, mitigating the risks of industrialization and fostering social harmony and cultural belonging. [less ▲]

The Eye of the Machine: Labour Sciences and the Mechanical Registration of the Human Body

Scientific Conference (2017)

In History: David Seymour’s Children of Europe

in Allender, Tim; Dussel, Inés; Grosvenor, Ian (Eds.) et al The Visual in Educational History: Reflections on the Practice of History in the Digital Age (n.d.)