Visual activism and Amnesty International: Photography, transnational networks, and the Anti-Apartheid movement, 1961-90

Ating, Nelly 2025. Visual activism and Amnesty International: Photography, transnational networks, and the Anti-Apartheid movement, 1961-90. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

In 1961, Peter Benenson launched a public campaign calling for the release of six political prisoners in The Observer. Six portraits of these political prisoners acf9companied this article. This publication signalled the establishment of the NGO, Amnesty International, by Benenson and a group of British lawyers, writers, and publishers. It also indicated a belief in the value of photographs to human rights activism and advocacy. Since its launch, Amnesty International has achieved important successes in using images for campaigning. Amnesty's methods of human rights advocacy, including campaigns for the release of political prisoners around the world, are among the best known and frequently replicated. This thesis examines the photographic archive of Amnesty International to better understand the part photography has played in the organisation’s publicity and campaign strategy, mediating human rights activism and advocacy globally. It argues that visual activism by Amnesty International was an essential means of establishing transnational networks of relationships between human rights groups and the media, simultaneously creating new ways of using portraiture to promote human rights activism. The analysis specifically focuses on Amnesty’s campaigns against apartheid in South Africa between 1961 and 1990, shedding light on how images were strategically used to challenge state authority and promote human rights. Amnesty International came of age in an era of Africa's decolonisation, a period marked by significant human rights violations. In South Africa, the white supremacist ideology of apartheid had been in place since 1948, when the National Party government took over power. The Sharpeville Massacre of 1961 established a historical connection between state violence, human rights violations, photography, and visual culture. The resistance of the 1960s led to the arrests, detentions, and rights abuses of political prisoners. These trends of political imprisonment, detention, and state violence coincided with Amnesty’s interest in the protection and promotion of human rights globally. Through analysis of case studies from Amnesty's archival collection of photographs and documents spanning from the 1960s to 1990 (including Helen Joseph, Kenneth Rachidi, Fanie Goduka, Winnie Mandela, Lilian Ngoyi, Solomon Mahlangu, Walter Sisulu, Zwelakhe Sisulu, and Nelson Mandela), this thesis critically examines Amnesty’s visual activism strategies in its anti-apartheid campaigns, especially the historical representation of political prisoners via domestic and mugshot portraiture rather than imagery of atrocities. It reveals the multifaceted performance of these images within the discourse of human rights, the visual economy of the NGO, and the transnational public sphere of the late twentieth century

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Journalism, Media and Culture
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	4 December 2025
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2025 13:25
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/182893

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