Author Identifier
Marziya Mohammedali: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2773-4664
Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
School of Arts and Humanities
First Supervisor
Panizza Allmark
Second Supervisor
Baden Offord
Third Supervisor
Duncan Barnes
Abstract
Contemporary resistance movements are marked by a flood of imagery and affect, particularly given the immediacy with which pressing events such as protest actions are photographed, recorded, streamed and shared on social media platforms. Many of these images are created by people who are themselves involved in protest, with the activist photographer playing multiple roles as activist, interpreter, participant, and witness. These visuals form a body of resistance that subverts conventional narratives and provides a window into how marginalised communities enact dissent through their relationships with each other, photographers, and the spaces around them.
In my exegesis and accompanying photobook, I reflect on over a decade of experience (2014-2023) as an activist photographer in Boorloo (Perth, Western Australia). This body of work conveys my encounters and experiences as an activist photographer from a marginalised and minoritised background, living as a settler-migrant on colonised land. I examine what it means to use the camera, historically a colonial and neo-colonial tool, to amplify resistance. I draw on empathy as the means through which the decolonial, feminist and queer potential of protest photography becomes manifest. This comes to the fore when used to confront existing narratives and to tell stories, through the model of the empathetic lens. The model links the photographer and the photographed, with a practice that writes back to the archive. This creates a necessary space for those who are often silenced to be seen and heard.
Access Note
Access to this thesis is embargoed until 11th October 2026
Access to this thesis is restricted to the exegesis
Some images are not available in this version of the thesis due to copyright considerations.
DOI
10.25958/r91y-xv72
Recommended Citation
Mohammedali, M. (2025). "The deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard”: A reflection on identity, photography, and protest in Perth (Boorloo), Western Australia. Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/r91y-xv72