I just want to start with a little bit of a word of warning, and that is: my job here tonight is to be a little bit of a "doctor bring-me-down." So bear with me for a few minutes, and know that after this, things will get lighter and brighter. So let's start.
我想在開始前, 先警告各位一件事: 今晚我在這裡的工作,有點像是 要做「讓我失望的醫生」。 所以,忍耐我幾分鐘, 並且記得,在這之後, 一切就會越來越輕鬆、明亮。 咱們開始吧。
I know that many of you have heard the traveler's adage, "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints." Well, I'm going to say I don't think that's either as benign nor as simple as it sounds, particularly for those of us in industries who are portraying people in poor countries, in developing countries and portraying the poor. And those of us in those industries are reporters, researchers and people working for NGOs; I suspect there are a lot of us in those industries in the audience. We're going overseas and bringing back pictures like this: of the utterly distressed or the displaced or the hungry or the child laborers or the exotic.
我知道有很多人都聽過 這句旅人的格言: 「什麼都別帶走,只帶走照片; 什麼都別留下,只留下足跡。」 嗯,我得要說, 我認為那句話並沒有 聽起來那麼簡單、無害, 特別是對於我們這種人, 我們所屬的產業 是在描繪貧窮國家的人、 開發中國家的人, 在描繪窮人。 做這的包括記者、研究者, 及為非政府組織工作的人; 我猜在觀眾席上也有 很多人來自這些產業。 我們去到海外,帶回像這樣的照片: 內容是非常窮苦的人、 被迫離家的人、 飢餓的人、 童工, 或異國情調。
Now, Susan Sontag reminds us that photographs, in part, help define what we have the right to observe, but more importantly, they are an ethics of seeing. And I think right now is a good time to review our ethics of seeing, as our industries of reporting and research and NGO work are collapsing and changing, in part, by what's being driven by what's happening in the economy. But it's making us forge new relationships. And those new relationships have some fuzzy boundaries. I worked at the edge of some of these fuzzy boundaries, and I want to share with you some of my observations.
蘇珊桑塔格提醒我們, 照片有一部分是在協助定義 我們有權觀察什麼, 但,更重要的是, 照片是「看的倫理」。 我認為現在就是很好的時機, 可以檢討我們「看的倫理」, 因為新聞報導、研究, 以及非政府組織工作的產業 正在崩壞和改變, 部分原因是受到經濟的影響。 它促使我們打造新的關係, 而那些新關係的界線模糊不清。 我就是在這類模糊不清的 界線邊緣工作, 我想和大家分享我的一些觀察。
My ethics of seeing is informed by 25 years as a reporter covering emerging economies and international relations. And I believe in a free and independent press. I believe that journalism is a public good. But it's getting harder to do that job, in part, because of the massive layoffs, because the budgets for international reporting aren't there anymore, new technologies and new platforms begging new content, and there are a lot of new journalisms. There's activist journalism, humanitarian journalism, peace journalism, and we are all looking to cover the important stories of our time. So we're going to NGOs and asking them if we can embed in their projects. This is in part because they're doing important work in interesting places.
我當了二十五年的記者, 報導新興經濟體以及國際關係, 這些經驗讓我有很多 「看的倫理」的資訊。 我相信自由且獨立的新聞界, 我相信,新聞業是一種公共財。 但那工作越來越難做了。 有部分原因是因為大量裁員, 因為不再有國際報導的預算了, 新技術和新平台需求新的內容, 有很多新的新聞業出現。 有行動主義新聞業、 人道主義新聞業、和平新聞業, 我們都要報導當代發生的重要故事。 所以我們找非政府組織, 詢問是否能加入他們的專案。 部分原因是因為他們 在有趣的地方做重要的工作。
That's one example here: this is a project I worked on in the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. NGOs understand the benefits of having reporters tag along on their team. They need the publicity, they are under tremendous pressure, they're competing in a very crowded market for compassion. So they're also looking to reporters and to hire freelance reporters to help them develop their public relations material and their media material. Now, researchers are also under pressure. They're under pressure to communicate their science outside of the academy. So they're collaborating with reporters, because for many researchers, it's difficult for them to write a simple story or a clear story. And the benefit for reporters is that covering field research is some of the best work out there. You not only get to cover science, but you get to meet interesting scientists, like my PhD advisor Revi Sterling, she, of the magic research high tops there. And it was a discussion with Revi that brought us to the edge of the researcher and reporter, that fuzzy boundary. And I said to her, "I was looking forward to going to developing countries and doing research and covering stories at the same time." She said, "I don't think so, girlfriend." And that confusion, that mutual confusion, drove us to publish a paper on the conflicting ethics and the contradictory practices of research and reporting. We started with the understanding that researchers and reporters are distant cousins, equally storytellers and social analysts. But we don't see nor portray developing communities the same way.
這裡有個例子: 這是我在衣索比亞的 藍色尼羅河進行的專案。 非政府組織了解讓記者 與他們的團隊同行 有什麼益處。 他們需要宣傳, 他們受到很大的壓力, 他們在一個非常擁擠的 市場中爭取同情。 所以他們也在找記者, 想僱用自由工作記者, 協助他們發展公關素材 和媒體素材。 而研究者也受到了壓力。 他們的壓力來自於要在學術圈 以外的地方溝通他們的科學。 所以他們和記者合作, 因為對許多研究者來說, 他們很難寫出簡單或清楚的故事。 記者能得到的益處 就是能在外頭最棒的 一些事件中報導實地研究。 你不只能報導科學, 你也能遇見有趣的科學家, 就像我的博士論文 指導教授雷維史德林, 她就是照片中穿著 魔術研究高幫鞋的那位。 和雷維所進行的討論 帶我們到了研究者和記者的邊緣, 那模糊的界線。 我對她說: 「我很期待前往開發中的國家, 同時做研究以及做報導。」 她說:「女孩,恐怕不行。」 那種困惑,那種相互的困惑, 驅使我們出版了一篇論文, 內容是關於研究和報導 之間的倫理衝突 以及做法矛盾。 我們的切入點是先了解 研究者和記者是遠房表親, 同樣都是說故事的人和做分析的人。 但我們看待或是描寫 開發中社區的方式並不相同。
Here's a very classic example. This is Somalia, 1992. It could be Somalia today. And this is a standard operating procedure for much of the news video and the news pictures that you see, where a group of reporters will be trucked in, escorted to the site of a disaster, they'll produce their material, take their pictures, get their interviews, and then they'll be escorted out. This is decidedly not a research setting.
舉一個非常經典的例子。 這是 1992 年的索馬利亞。 也可能是現今的索馬利亞。 這是一個標準作業程序, 各位平常看到的新聞影片和圖片 大部分都要這個程序, 這個程序就是, 一群記者會被用卡車載進來, 被護送到災難發生的地點, 在這裡他們會 製作他們要的素材,拍他們要的 照片,取得他們的要的訪談, 接著他們會被護送出去。 這很明顯不是個做研究的環境。
Now, sometimes, we're working on feature stories. This is an image I took of a woman in Bhongir Village in Andhra Pradesh in India. She's at a microfinance meeting. It's a terrific story. What's important here is that she is identifiable. You can see her face. This also is not a research picture. This is much more representative of a research picture. It's a research site: you see young women accessing new technologies. It's more of a time stamp, it's a documentation of research. I couldn't use this for news. It doesn't tell enough, and it wouldn't sell.
有時我們會做專題報導。 這是我拍的照片,照片上的女子 在印度安得拉邦的邦格伊爾村。 她去參加一場微額貸款會議。 這是個很棒的故事。 這裡重要的是:她是可識別的。 你們可以看見她的臉。 這也不是一張研究照片。 這張才比較是研究照片的代表作。 這是一個研究場所:你們可以 看見年輕女子在使用新科技。 它比較是個時間戳記, 它是研究的記錄文件。 我沒辦法把它用在新聞上。 它說的不夠多,沒有賣點。
But then, the differences are even deeper than that. Revi and I analyzed some of the mandates that researchers are under. They are under some very strict rules governed by their university research review boards when it comes to content and confidentiality. Researchers are mandated to acquire document-informed consent. Well, as a reporter, if I hang a microphone on someone, that is consent. And when it comes to creating the story, I'll fact-check as a reporter, but I don't invite company to create that story, whereas social scientists, researchers, and particularly participatory researchers, will often work on constructing the narrative with the community. And when it comes to paying for information, "checkbook journalism" is roundly discouraged, in part, because of the bias it introduces in the kind of information you get. But social scientists understand that people's time is valuable so they pay them for that time.
但,差異不只如此,還要更深許多。 雷維和我分析了研究者 在哪些授權之下進行研究。 他們在一些非常嚴格的 規則下做研究, 這些規則是由他們的 大學研究審查委員會來管理, 管理的範圍包括研究內容和機密性。 研究者被要求需取得知情同意書。 身為記者,我只要在 某人身上掛個麥克風, 那就是同意了。 身為記者,如果要寫報導 我就會去查證事實, 但我不會邀請伙伴來寫那篇報導, 可是社會科學家、研究者, 特別是參與的研究者, 他們通常會和共同體一起書寫。 至於要花錢買資訊的情況, 「支票簿新聞」受到嚴厲勸阻, 有部分原因是因為你用這種方式 取得的資訊中會有偏見。 但社會科學家知道人的時間很寶貴, 所以他們會付錢買人的時間。
So while journalists are well-placed to convey the beauty of the scientific process -- and I would add, the NGO process -- what about the warts? What happens if a research project is not particularly well-designed, or an NGO project doesn't fulfill its goals? Or the other kind of warts, you know, what happens after dark when the drinks happen. Research environments and reporting trips and NGO projects are very intimate environments; you make good friends while you're doing good work. But there's a little bit of Johnnie Walker journalism after dark, and what happens to that line between embedded and in-bedded? Or what do you do with the odd and odious behavior? The point is that you'll want to negotiate in advance what is on the record and off the record.
所以,雖然新聞記者很適合 負責傳遞科學過程之美—— 我補充一下,非政府組織過程—— 那缺陷呢? 設計不特別良好的研究計畫會怎樣? 無法達標的非政府組織計畫會怎樣? 或是其他類型的缺陷, 天黑之後開始喝酒,會發生什麼事? 研究環境、報導行程, 以及非政府組織計畫 是非常親密的環境; 當你在做很棒的工作時, 你還能交到很棒的朋友。 但在天黑之後,會有一點 「約翰走路新聞學」出現, 在「參與」和「上床」 (英文發音相似)之間的 那條線會怎麼樣呢? 要如何處理奇怪和令人討厭的行為? 重點是,你會希望能在事先就協調好 什麼要列入記錄, 什麼不要列入。
I'm going to turn now to some NGO imagery which will be familiar to some of you in this audience.
現在我要轉來談一些 非政府組織的意象, 在座可能有些人會感到很熟悉。
(Video) Narrator: For about 70 cents, you can buy a can of soda, regular or diet. In Ethiopia, for just 70 cents a day, you can feed a child like Jamal nourishing meals. For about 70 cents, you can also buy a cup of coffee. In Guatemala, for 70 cents a day, you can help a child like Vilma get the clothes she needs to attend school.
(影片)旁白:花大約七十分錢, 就能買到一罐汽水, 一般的或無糖的。 在衣索比亞,一天若有七十分錢, 就可以讓賈墨爾這樣的孩子 吃到營養的餐點。 有大約七十分錢, 你還可以買一杯咖啡。 在瓜地馬拉,一天若有七十分錢, 就能協助像維爾瑪這樣的孩子 買到上學需要穿的衣服。
Leslie Dodson: Now, there's some very common imagery that's been around for 40 years. That's part of Sally Struthers's famine campaign. Some of it is very familiar; it's the Madonna and child. Women and children are very effective in terms of NGO campaigns. We've been looking at this imagery for a long time, for hundreds and hundreds of years; the Madonna and child. Here is [Duccio], and here is Michelangelo. My concern is: Are we one-noting the genders in our narratives of poverty in developing communities? Do we have women as victims, and are men only the perpetrators? Are they the guys with the AK-47s or the boy soldiers? Because that doesn't leave room for stories like the man who's selling ice cream at the refuge camp in Southern Sudan, where we did a project, or the stories of the men who are working on the bridge over the Blue Nile. So I wonder: Are these stories inconvenient to our narratives?
講者:這是很常見的意象, 已經存在了四十年。 那是莎莉史特魯瑟斯的 女性運動的一部分。 有些部分大家很熟悉;這是聖母子。 在非政府組織的活動中, 女性和孩童是非常有效果的。 我們已經看著這種意象 很長一段時間了, 有數百年的時間;聖母子。 這是杜喬的作品, 這是米開朗基羅的作品。 我關心的問題是:我們在訴說關於 貧困開發中社區的故事時, 對性別是否太侷限了? 我們是否把女性當受害者, 只把男性當行兇者? 他們是拿著 AK-47 步槍的人,或是童兵? 因為這樣就沒有空間容納其他故事, 比如有位男子在我們 實行計畫的南蘇丹難民營中 販售冰淇淋的故事, 或是有些男人協助建造 藍色尼羅河上的橋樑的故事。 所以,我納悶: 難道,這些故事 會讓我們不方便講述嗎?
And what about this narrative? This is a for-profit game, and its aim is to make development fun. One question is: Did they inadvertently make fun of? Another set of questions is: What are the rights of these children? What rights of publicity or privacy do they have? Did they get paid? Should they get paid? Should they share in the profit? This is a for-profit game. Did they sign talent waivers? I have to use these when I'm working with NGOs and documentary filmmakers here in the States. In the States, we take our right to privacy and publicity very seriously. So what is it about getting on a long-haul flight that makes these rights vaporize?
那這種講述方式呢? 這是一個營利遊戲, 它的目標是要讓發展變得很好玩。 有一個問題是:他們 是否不經意做了嘲弄? 另一組問題是: 這些孩子有什麼權利? 他們有什麼曝光或隱私的權利? 他們有拿錢嗎? 他們應該拿錢嗎? 他們應該分享收益嗎? 這是個營利遊戲。 他們有簽署放棄聲明嗎? 當我在和非政府組織 及美國這裡的紀錄片導演 合作的時候,我得用到這些。 在美國,我們非常嚴肅看待隱私 和曝光的權利。 而搭一趟漫長艱苦的飛行之後, 這些權利就蒸發了,是怎麼回事?
I don't want to just pick on our friends in the gaming arts; I'll turn to the graphic arts, where we often see these monolithic, homogeneous stories about the great country of Africa. But Africa is not a country, it's a continent. It's 54 countries and thousands and thousands of languages. So my question is: Is this imagery productive, or is it reductive? I know that it's popular.
我不想要只是針對我們 在遊戲藝術的朋友們找碴; 讓我轉來談談平面藝術, 在平面藝術,我們常常會 看到這些單獨、同質的故事, 內容是偉大的非洲國家。 但非洲不是個國家,它是塊大陸。 它有 54 個國家和數千種語言。 所以我的問題是:這種意象有成效 還是正好相反? 我知道這很普遍。
USAID just launched their campaign "Forward" -- FWD: Famine, War and Drought. And by looking at it, you would think that was happening all the time, all over Africa. But this is about what's happening in the Horn of Africa. And I'm still trying to make sense of Africa in a piece of Wonder Bread. I'm wondering about that.
美國國際開發援助署剛展開了 「向前(Foward)」計畫—— 縮寫 FWD:女性(F)、 戰爭(W),與乾旱(D)。 單看它,你會以為 在非洲各地這些問題 一直在發生。 但這計畫是針對在非洲之角 所發生的狀況。 我還在試著搞懂在一則 Wonder Bread 牌麵包的廣告中 非洲有什麼意義。 我對那點很納悶。
Germaine Greer has wondered about the same things and she says, "At breakfast and at dinner, we can sharpen our own appetites with a plentiful dose of the pornography of war, genocide, destitution and disease." She's right. We have sharpened our appetites. But we can also sharpen our insights. It is not always war, insurrection and disease. This is a picture out of South Sudan, just a couple of months before the new country was born.
吉曼基爾也曾納悶過 同樣的事,她說: 「我們能在早餐和晚餐時磨利胃口, 用的是包含戰爭、 大屠殺、貧困,和疾病的 大量色情作品。」 她是對的。我們已經 磨利了我們的胃口。 但我們也能夠磨利我們的洞見。 不見得永遠都是 戰爭、起義,和疾病。 這是一張南蘇丹的照片, 拍攝時間是在這個新國家 誕生之前的幾個月。
I will continue to work as a researcher and a reporter in developing countries, but I do it with an altered ethic of seeing. I ask myself whether my pictures are pandering, whether they contribute to stereotypes, whether the images match the message, am I complacent or am I complicit?
我會持續以研究者和記者的身份 在開發中國家努力, 但我這麼做時,我的 「看的倫理」已經轉變了。 我自問,我的照片是否是在迎合、 助長刻板印象? 影像是否符合要傳達的訊息? 我是在自滿還是在同謀?
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)