Blog Post #10: Historical Context

In order to better understand the relevance of the photograph of the three Ugandan boys I have chosen, it is very important to understand the historical and cultural contexts from which it is derived.

To fully understand the significance of the photo, you must understand the history of the location at which it was taken. This photo was taken in 2008 in Uganda. Uganda is a landlocked country in Eastern Africa bordered by Kenya, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Rwanda. (Wikipedia) For the last 23 years Uganda has entrenched in a brutal civil war between the Government of Uganda, currently headed by President Yoweri Museveni, and The Lord’s Resistance Army.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is a rebel guerrilla army formed in 1987 by Joseph Kony, who is a self-proclaimed “spokesperson” of God and a spirit medium. The LRA, recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, adheres to a blend of Christianity, Mysticism, witchcraft, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments. The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations including abduction, murder, mutilation, and the sexual enslavement of women. Kony and the LRA are possibly most known for abducting children and forcing them to fight in his army. “It is estimated that over 90% of the LRA’s troops were abducted as children” (Invisible Children). The LRA leaders believed that they young children would be easier to terrorize could easily be brainwashed and molded into trained fighters and killers, and that they could less easily escape. In search of safety and protection, approximately 25,000 children, between the ages of 3 and 17, known as night commuters, have been forced to travel up to 12 miles per night from their small vulnerable villages to larger more protected cities. The children sleep in masses at hospitals, empty churches, and bus parks where the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces offer some protection while they sleep.

In an attempt to protect the Ugandan people from the LRA and put an end to the night commuting, the Ugandan government forcibly evicted thousands from their homes and pushed them into overcrowded communities, now called displacement camps. Now, over a decade later, over a million people still live in displacement camps and along with the ever-present threat from the LRA “struggle to survive among the effects of abject poverty, rampant disease, and near-certain starvation” (Invisible Children). The displacement camps have offered few opportunities for cash income, almost no credit available, and very few of the people receive support from relatives living outside the camps. The main means of support for the camps is international humanitarian aid, which is never enough.

In the photograph, we see three boys overlooking hundreds of homes. Understanding the history of the country they are in, the war that is raging around them, that their homes are part of a displacement camp with deplorable conditions, and that they most likely live in constant fear of abduction by a rebel group provides a whole new context from which to view the photo.

Works Cited

"History of the War." Invisible Children. Invisible Children, 2009. Web. 1 Oct.
2009. <http://www.invisiblechildren.com/about/history/>.

"Lord's Resistance Army." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army

"Uganda." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda

Blog Post #9: Arrangement And Appeals

In the photograph of the three Ugandan boys I chose, the vectors of attention are focused toward the displacement camp. The subjects are centered in the middle of the photograph, so they are certainly the first things that you notice when looking at the picture as they are the largest and take up the most space. But then, your attention turns to what they are looking at, or what their attention is directed on, and that is on the displacement camp. It seems that the vectors of attention are such that your attention is drawn to the center of the photo, and then encourage you to work slowly outward. The way that the boys are standing also, with the tallest in the center and the shorter boys on each side, also directs your initial attention to the center of the photo. The way that they boys are arranged also lends an appeal to ethos. The decision to arrange the subjects the way that they did lends credibility to the photographer. Their arrangement and the vectors of attention are very effective at directing our attention to all of the various elements present in the picture, and making it obvious how they relate to each other and why they are important to our understanding of the context in which the photo was taken.

The arrangement of the subjects and vectors of attention are also an appeal to pathos and logos as well. There are many strong appeals to pathos in this photo, most of which are created by the vectors of attention and arrangement. By having the three boys centered in the photo and standing right next to each other, not only does it draw your attention to them right away, it eludes that they might be friends or brothers and evokes in the viewer a sense of compassion and empathy, as most of us can think of the loving feelings that we have for our own friends. There is also an appeal to pathos through the vectors of attention. While our initial attention is drawn to the center and the boys, it is where they are looking and what they are looking at that is really applicable to pathos. The displacement camp is where the attention of the photo is directed. Even though you might not know what a displacement camp is, by looking at the photo, you can see the sheer number of homes, how close together all of the homes are, how small they are, and how they are all constructed of straw and earth, rather than timber an steel as our homes typically are. This would invoke in most people a sense of sympathy, as any person can understand how important shelter and home are. Thinking about living in such small and tight living conditions would make most people count their blessings and be thankful that they live in the home that they do and feel sorry for those who live in such squalor.

The appeals to logos found in this picture are in the very elements that make up the photo. The photo is in black and white, and because of that the only hues in this image are black, grey, and white. Despite the lack of color, there is a great deal of contrast present. There are extreme differences between the lights and darks in this picture. The dark skin of the boys is a stark contrast to the light and bright area of the displacement camp homes and they sky.