Producing places and mapping experiences with photography

Abstract

Objectives: To understand how photography can be used in the symbolic appropriation of spaces by migrant and refugee women living in São Paulo. Emphasizing the particularities of smartphone photography, including its geolocation and circulation features when connected to GPS and the internet, we aim to reflect on the cartography and place-making resulting from this practice. 

Materials and methods: Since this is a theoretical reflection, the methodology used involved a bibliographic review of topics relevant to the research. Key references include Tim Ingold's graphic anthropology (2012, 2015), the concept of situated visuality by Hjorth and Pink (2012), and the interconnection between online and offline cartography using the concepts of "informational territories" (Lemos, 2010), "networked locality" (Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2012), and "interstitial space" (Santaella, 2008). The concept of place is understood as a weaving of lines (Ingold, 2015), a pause in movement (Tuan, 1983), and a mesh (Hjorth & Pink, 2014). 

Results: This theoretical reflection has enabled the development of a methodology for using photography as a tool for self-awareness, visual education, citizenship promotion, and social inclusion. The goal is not technical instruction that stifles photographic practice but collective experimentation that transcends framing constraints. Previously discussed in another article, this approach starts with the understanding of one’s body as a territory and seeks to promote photographic production as a way of maintaining co-presence with other bodies, bringing awareness to space. 

Conclusions: We understand that place, in photography, can be formed not only in materiality but also in the act of sharing images and their circulation through cyberspace. Freezing time is not the goal of this practice but rather extending it in duration or, in the case of maps created from photographs, fracturing time.