Paper short abstract:

This paper contributes to a broader theoretical-methodological reflection on visual policies, especially with respect to the ways of representing sociocultural and subaltern otherness, in order to address the need for an ethical aesthetics, which can only be decolonial.

Paper long abstract:

Based on a specific ethnographic case study such as that of the Dominican bateyes, the aim of this paper is to contribute to a broader theoretical-methodological reflection on visual policies in the anthropological discipline, especially with respect to the ways of representing sociocultural otherness. Finally, the purpose is to address the need for an ethics of aesthetics, or an ethical aesthetics, which can only be decolonial.

The bateyes are communities of colonial heritage, whose origins are rooted in the slave plantation system, where people still reside in deplorable living conditions, without access to basic services or fundamental rights.

Since the 1970s they have been the subject of attention from the academic world and international organizations.

In recent years numerous visual and audiovisual products of an informative nature have been created, spreading both photographic and video images throughout the world. Generally, these images have had a great impact on the public, due to their reference to the theme of slavery.

Although animated by intentions of solidarity and denunciation, the question of the representation of otherness is forcefully planted, and especially of subaltern otherness.

In some way, what we encounter is the production of an additional victimization, so as not to consider the dignity of the victims as people, as people alive now, relegating them to a condition of passivity and lack of agency.

The open question that animates this paper is therefore the following: is a decolonial aesthetic intended as an ethically sustainable aesthetic possible? If so, how?