Author Ariella Azoulay argues that the act of photography describes the set of power relations between people and those that govern them.
According to Ariella Azoulay, film maker and professor of comparative literature, photography is no neutral act. In fact it cannot be separated from the many catastrophes of recent history.
In her book The Civil Contract of Photography (available in Hebrew and in English), Azoulay argues that the act of photography describes the set of power relations between people and those that govern them. It considers the crucial role played by photography in the making and unmaking of citizens, as discovered by our protagonist Hagit in From Our Point of View.
It addresses two vulnerable groups, Palestinian noncitizens in Israel and women in Western society, and how anyone who participates in photography can become a citizen in the citizenry of photography.