Beyond the Frame: How Colonial Visual Legacies Shape Protest Imagery and Global Solidarity
Original framing: “Shoot the People: Global Activism through Misan Harriman’s Lens” — Al Jazeera
The voices of anonymous photographers, archivists, and protest participants—particularly women, queer, and disabled activists—are systematically erased from narratives like Harriman’s. For example, the *Women’s March* in Poland was documented primarily by female photographers, yet their contributions are rarely highlighted in global media. Similarly, disabled protesters use visual strategies like ASL interpretation in images to assert inclusion, a dimension absent from the ableist framing of 'global activism.' The original piece centers Harriman while obscuring the collective labor of marginalized image-makers.
The original framing of Harriman’s work as a solitary act of 'global activism' obscures the deeply colonial and gendered history of protest photography—a medium that has been as much a tool of control as of resistance.
From the British Empire’s use of images to justify repression in India to today’s algorithmic suppression of dissent in Hong Kong, the visual documentation of protest is never neutral but embedded in power struggles over narrative sovereignty. Harriman’s lens, while politically engaged, replicates the same extractive dynamics that have historically erased Indigenous and marginalized voices, such as the anonymous photographers of the *Women’s March Poland* or the Zapatista collectives who blend visual activism with spiritual resistance. To move beyond this paradigm, solutions must center decolonial archives, counter-surveillance technologies, and artistic-spiritual frameworks that restore agency to those most affected by state violence. The trickster’s role here is to expose the absurdity of treating protest imagery as apolitical—whether through the satirical interventions of the *Yes Men* or the chaotic energy of *Coyote*, who reminds us that resistance is not just about visibility but about reclaiming the right to define what is seen.