Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

“America the Borderland, a Moral Courage Project” is a trans-disciplinary, educational, research-based project that took place along the US-Mexico border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez from 2017-19. A team of educators and students from the University of Dayton, Ohio teamed up with the New York-based non-profit PROOF: Media for Social Justice to tell the stories of citizens and upstanders facing issues directly related to the border, with a focus on the political, social and cultural narratives that are the current focus of international media and government attention. Glenna Jennings (Associate Professor, Photography) and Leora Kahn (Executive Director, PROOF) worked alongside their students and colleagues from Political Science, Sociology, English, Human Rights Studies and Art and Design to create photographs and conduct interviews with participants including deported US war veterans, immigration attorneys, civil rights activists and visual artists. Employing methods that privilege story-telling within a Human Rights framework, they worked with dozens of individuals and a number of organizations to produce an exhibition, pod-cast, and zine. Jennings and Kahn present documentation of the project alongside excerpts from the podcast, and other published materials in order to discuss the role social documentary photography can play in cross-disciplinary endeavors. They share the visual stories of individuals who are playing key roles in the current US - Mexico “border crisis” to protect immigrant and refugee rights, secure civil rights, and celebrate the unique Fronteriza culture that enriches and defines the southern US borderland.