PROJECT DETAILS
That a More Humane World Might Be is an integrated media project that seeks to create a contemporary image of El Salvador in its historic evolution toward a more just society. The project is a photographic and video documentation that will explore how the human and natural landscapes have been marked by social, economic, and political change in El Salvador from the onset of the civil war to present day. The use of multi-media, visual journalism focuses on objectively documenting the lives of individuals and communities who are protagonists in the nation’s struggle for peace and progress. The photographic and video documentation will be the product of immersion and a prolonged interview process seeking to capture the perspective of those who continue to live and struggle with the themes of poverty, marginalization, and violence. This multimedia documentation is part of a collaborative project, and will be complemented by a written non-fiction narrative based on the same subjects. The dissemination of the project will be centered around a website that will serve as a journalistic resource for an audience interested in issues of international peace, justice, development. The combined visual and written work will create a more identifiable image of the national human, physical, and social landscapes that will serve as a visual framework for critical analysis of foreign and national economic, social, and political policy and the philosophical and ideological movements that inspired them.
El Salvador is a country born in the ancient Latin American mold of concentrated power and wealth. For centuries economic and military elites have yielded power and privilege against the population in a cycle the systemic violence, marginalization, and exploitation. While such a history is not unique to El Salvador, the Salvadoran people’s struggle for a more just society is. Specifically in the last thirty years, El Salvador has undergone intense turmoil that has begun to uproot old traditions of political exclusion and human rights violations and altered the nature of Salvadoran society. |
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| RESEARCH METHODOLOGY |
This study will be conducted in the style of a critical ethnography that will seek to place the research in its social context to consider how knowledge is shaped by the values and power relationships between human actors in the national and local context. The field research will consist of open ended interviews and participant observation concentrating on four case study communities, Ex-combatant communities of Usulután, Indigenous communities of Izalco, Shantytown populations of Soyapango, and Labor Unions of Puerto Catuco La Union. This ethnographic study will be a visual examination of human experience with humanitarian themes of peace, justice, and progress from the community level. The project began in August of 2009 and the field research period is slated to last for one year. |
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