Abstract

This chapter focuses on ethical concerns based on a close examination of an NGO’s photographic documentation (Physicians for Human Rights, Israel). Whereas the common objections to photographs of human rights abuse are concerned with the exploitation of victimhood, I claim that we should not evaluate this kind of photography solely by the image product. Through a description of the organization’s transgression of conventional socio-spatial delimitations in its use of photographs to expose the medical treatment to the public, I argue its visual practice is an instrument of protest that constitutes a political civil act.