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A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka
Paperback
Series: Global South Asia
AnthropologyGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesPhotography History & Criticism
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ISBN13: 9780295754444
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: Jun 16 2026
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.97
Height: 0.84 Width: 6.08 Depth: 9.01
Language: English
Photography as witness and weapon amid civil war
This groundbreaking ethnography explores how, in the context of Sri Lanka's protracted civil war and its turbulent aftermath, photography has become bound to the Tamil political imagination. From state-commissioned images meant to surveil and rebel documentation of armed resistance, to the fragile memorials created from identity photographs of the disappeared, A Volatile Picture traces the making and moving of images across borders, communities, and generations. Studio portraits, passport pictures, family albums, atrocity photography, social media posts, and more act not only as records of loss and horror but also as vital tools for protest, solidarity, and the realization of alternate political futures. Drawing on transnational archival and ethnographic encounters and long-term fieldwork in northern Sri Lanka, Vindhya Buthpitiya situates photography as both a volatile medium and a political practice. Photographs emerge here as incendiary agents--simultaneously evidencing and triggering violence, sustaining memory, and inciting new visions of liberation.
This is the first in-depth study of Tamil photographic practices in Sri Lanka, offering a major contribution to the anthropology of war, visual culture, and South Asian studies. Richly researched and deeply humane, A Volatile Picture demonstrates how, amid devastation and displacement, photographs continue to generate truths, solidarities, and hopes that resist erasure.
1 different editions
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A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka
Buthpitiya, Vindhya
Hardcover
Also from
Buthpitiya, Vindhya
A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka
Buthpitiya, Vindhya
Hardcover
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