The Purchase of Witnessing in Human Rights Activism

• In Event: Activism and Social Media

Abstract

This paper documents how witnessing as a mode of seeing has become a political practice by which human rights activists legitimize their claims. Tackling its purchase historically and today, the paper distinguishes between two approaches to witnessing that characterize human rights activism: witnessing of an event—where bearing witness to an occurrence so that publics can attend to the human rights violation is imperative both morally and historically—and witnessing for a purpose—where rendering witnessing legible to specific audiences who can take a concrete action is of key political importance. Mapping the shift away from witnessing of to witnessing for in human rights activism, this chapter argues that the power of witnessing as a mechanism for social change draws from its entanglement with images, which navigate the evidentiary and emotional terrains simultaneously. Witnessing thus designates a particular mode of seeing where seeing is felt and feeling is seen.

Author

• Sandra Ristovska, University of Colorado Boulder