Archives of/as resistance : On the justice potential of eyewitness image records documenting the Syrian conflict

• What are the new possibilities of enacting justice through the vast archives of digital eyewitness images and self-representations produced since 2011 by the grassroots Syrian opposition movement amidst both a nascent revolution and a war entailing gross human rights violations? Based on in-depth interviews with 15 anti-regime Syrian video activists, my article considers how the image makers themselves narrate the role and meaning of these archival records in efforts to reckon with Syria's tormented past and build a more just future. I thus seek to recognize the ongoing agency of the Syrian media activists who struggled, by centering them and their wishes in the current debate about the role that this new type of activist-fueled human rights records can play in helping to build roads to justice and healing in Syria.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Medievetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Media Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

activist archiving

archiving protest

digital media

digital memory

Syrian conflict

video activism

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)