Representation in the Age of Instagram: Travel Blogging and Agency

caroline sprague

It was, initially, an accident. As Russian-born Murad Osmann (né Murad Osmanov) paused to take photograph after photograph, his then-girlfriend (now wife), Natalya Zakharova grabbed his hand and dragged him behind her—and Osmann continued to photograph. This was the first picture from the couple’s #followmeto series, which would launch them to international fame and render them two of the most well-known travel bloggers in the world.[1] Today, Osmann, posting under the handle @muradosmann, has 4.2 million followers on Instagram and was named one of Forbes’ top influencers of 2017.

However “accidental” their fame is, it has roots in a longer history of travel, photography, representation, and East-West dynamics. This history can be mapped in Osmann’s photographs—regardless of whether the artist himself is aware of its influence in his work. Osmann’s Instagram account thus becomes a microcosm of this history as well as a testament to the continued power of these dynamics. Three scholars in particular—Mary Pratt, Timothy Mitchell, and Ariella Azoulay—have examined the historical forces affecting travel, travel writing, and photography; taken together, we can begin to understand how Instagram has conformed to—and challenged—the legacy of history.

Instagram boasts over one billion monthly users;[2] geographically, the largest share of users (34%) comes from the Middle East and Africa[3]. Since Instagram’s founding in 2011, the platform has come to house more than 30 billion photographs, and has become an essential element of the social media landscape.[4] Osmann was an early user, having begun to post heavily-filtered, captionless shots of his travel destinations in mid-2011; his iconic #followmeto series began just a few months later.[5] 

In recent years, Osmann has strayed from the distinctive composition which characterizes the #followmeto project, gradually moving toward video and panorama. As such, Osmann’s photographic journey, in style and in his sense of himself as an artist, is archived in his feed.[6] Scrolling through Osmann’s feed exemplifies the historical evolution of online photo sharing. Even so, Instagram is but a moment in the long history of travel and photography, and must be seen within its broader historical and theoretical context. Osmann’s page is a digital manifestation to the ways that Westerners have, throughout history, grappled with their relationship to the East, forcing us to think critically about the digital media with which we are presented. Through thorough review of Osmann’s photography, it is possible to trace a historical legacy of the effects of western authority over representative media, and examine whether, in the post-colonial age, these influences retain their potency.

Mary Pratt, Travel Writing, and Aestheticizing Interactions

Pratt has taken a particular interest in travel journals written by Europeans in the 19th century as they explored “exotic” lands far from home. Instagram may be seen as the modern equivalent. Today’s users grapple with many of the same themes—consciously or not—that 18th century explorers considered in their writings, including how to understand and represent cultures, people, and places to which they do not belong. Osmann’s Instagram page is a testament to the globalization of  the modern world. From shot to shot, he and Zakharova jump from Kazakhstan to Ethiopia to Paris with as little effort as it takes the viewer to scroll from post to post (Appendix A, B, C). This phenomenon of cultural encounter may be accelerated by increased globalization, but it is nothing new.

One such example is what Pratt calls the “contact zone.” For Pratt, the contact zone is a space of discord, one in which  unequal power dynamics are exposed and exploited, and individuals must contend with the significance of these representational inequalities.[7] Notably, Osmann’s photography infrequently depicts the couple’s interactions with other people. Within the context of Instagram, the real contact zone is in the comments section. In one example, Zakharova stands before the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, her long, blonde hair flowing in loose waves down her back (Appendix D). Osmann’s caption describes being “blown away” by the mosque’s architecture. However, commenter @nihal_sinan_1842 is less focused on the mosque’s construction. In Turkish, he writes, “lütfen camii avlularimizda saygi duyaraktan giyinelim..nacizane fikrim..yinede basarilar diliyorum.”  Translated, this commentor is expressing his concern that Zakharova’s hair is uncovered in the mosque’s sacred space.

This  debate over the head scarf is not only one occurring between Turks (like @nihal_sinan_1842) and non-Turks (like Osmann and Zakharova), but within Turkey as well. Norms of veiling are often political, as well as cultural and religious. For instance, during the Kemalist movement in the early 20th century, Turkish women were encouraged to reject the headscarf in a display of “modernity,” or a European affiliation.[8] The rejection of the headscarf was symbolic of the broader repudiation of the Ottoman Empire and a renewed focus on secularism and the adoption of European social, cultural, and economic principles.[9] The Kemalist push for a Western secularism has been challenged by a revitilization of Islam within the nation sporadically throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and has been regaining strength through Erdogan’s administration. Once again, the headscarf has become a symbol of this transition. Indeed, a lengthy ban on the wearing of headscarves in public spaces  was mostly lifted in 2013, in part signaling changing attitudes toward secularism in the country.[10] Although secularism and Islam are often characterized as mutually-exclusive, an increasing proportion of the Turkish population is challenging this view, arguing that Islam and modernity in Turkey can, and do, coexist.[11]

The role of the headscarf is debated in Turkey, and @nihal_sinan_1842’s comment does not reflect a universality in opinion among Turks. Still, it represents a cases in which Osmann’s photography has inadvertently involved itself in a broader debate taking place within a society of which he is not a member. The interaction between @nihal_sinan_1842 and Osmann’s work exemplifies the “reciprocal vision” in which a member of the photographed culture has agency to return the gaze and reflect back on the photographer. This power to return the gaze is enabled by instant feedback platforms such as Instagram that have low geographical and economic barriers to entry. On social media platforms, the subject  and the gazer are brought together by the “private interest of each.”[12] Unlike travel literature of the past, social media opens a platform for two-way discourse between the subject and the gazer. While Osmann’s picture remains the feature, subjects like @nihal_sinan_1848 can include their own representations in the post’s narrative.

At the same time, we can question whether, buried deep in the comments section, this dialogue has any influence. The nature of Instagram’s platform ensures that the image is the medium through which content is shared. Text is of secondary importance. As a result, the poster retains control of what the viewer sees. This allows Osmann to embody the “anti-conquest narrative.” According to Pratt, this narrative reinforces Western dominance while purporting separation from the colonial project.[13] This is illustrated by Osmann’s ability to distance himself from a larger history of European cultural hegemony: in a caption written under a video taken in India, Osmann writes, “I don’t think any words can express our relationship with India. Wherever we travel — It is always in our hearts” (Appendix E). This “relationship” is not between Russia, Europe, and India, or between Europeans and Indians but is rather one couple’s personal relationship with an entire country and all the things and people contained within it. This personal relationship with a larger culture is characteristic of anti-conquest narratives.[14] Depictions of this relationship characterize Osmann and Zakharova as what Pratt calls “sentimental hero[es],” controlling the course of representation.[15] To control the narrative is to gain mastery of it. What is represented is always “anchored in the seer,” who, in the act of seeing, gains “mastery” over where he gazes.[16] The ability to see, and thus to represent, becomes the tool of the individual, Western hero in the face of unfamiliar cultures.

In alignment with the narrative of the “sentimental hero,” Osmann and Zakharova almost always appear alone in the photographs. From Angkor Wat to the Taj Mahal to Petra—all places typically teeming with visitors —Osmann’s shots are devoid of other people  (Appendix F, G, H). This occurs in the same way that 19th century travel writers described the scenes they visited as “unpossessed, unhistoricized, unoccupied.”[17]  In both examples, the discrepancy between representation and reality is jarring for those who are familiar with the usual hustle and bustle. On a video series taken at the palaces of Bangkok, user @squeelyinc comments, “You guys must of got to the palace at the crack of dawn, usually swarming with people (sic)” (Appendix I). This representation of “unoccupied” land, regardless of the representer’s intentions, creates a space within history that allows for the Western body to insert itself into a non-Western frame. Spatial emptiness becomes a tool of rewritten history, and crafts a new narrative in which Western influence is a corporeal presence. The exception to the rule of emptiness is the inclusion of individuals who essentially complement the landscape: dancers in Taiwan, flower sellers in Cuba, or “Go” players in China. (Appendix J, K, L). They appear, according to Pratt, as nothing more than “traces on the landscape.”[18] The distinction is that the local people are not the subject of the photograph; in the photograph’s composition, other people are included in order to contextualize and aestheticize.

According to Pratt, these factors work together as part of a “transformative project.”[19] In particular, the aestheticization of non-Western countries is a tactical strategy that establishes an apparent need for the “benign and beautifying intervention.”[20] In some ways, Osmann, or  the traveler in general, is the implementer of this “beautifying intervention.” Using color alteration and strategic photographic construction, Osmann is improving the s’ aesthetics, implying  that beauty is the product  of the Western presence.

Timothy Mitchell, Representation, and Misrepresentation:

Instagram is, by its nature, a tool of representation, which Timothy Mitchell defines as what is “set up” to conjure “some larger truth.”[21] Osmann’s account is no exception. Instagram imparts onto the viewer a sense of the “world as a picture,” capturing even that which is outside its frame.[22] Moreover, in this construction of the world, the viewer is distanced, set apart from, and invisible to what is observed.[23] Per Mitchell, the seer believes that his gaze is innocuous; this validates his “separation” from what he observes and corresponds to a “position of power.”[24] In short, the viewer’s illusion of separation from that which he is observing is also that which allows him to represent it. In one such post on Osmann’s account, Zakharova stands atop a hill in Rio de Janeiro, looking down on the city and the blue waters beneath her (Appendix M). The image does not show the slums that exist just next to the skyscrapers, nor does it reveal that it is sponsored by @visitbrasil, the country’s official tourism page; it is, after all, a representation.

In this example, we also see the fetishization of materialism at work. With the introduction of the advertisement, the photograph becomes the location of material trade, rather than the exchange of cross-cultural contact. Commodity fetishism through advertisements on Instagram is the modern equivalent of the exhibit and its display of the world’s “conversion” to a capitalist economy.[25] Tools allowing users to shop directly from the application, targeted advertising, and paid product placements produce the effect that, on Instagram, something is always being sold. This infusion of capitalism into representation results in what Mitchell calls the “effect,” or appearance, of reality.[26] Travelers are possessed of a “passive curiosity” that allows them to perceive the real world in the same manner as its photographic representations; likewise, the world is consumed as a commodity in a digital marketplace.[27] Osmann’s feed is a global exhibition in its own right, with each photo representing something that the viewer, too, can aspire to possess. A modern traveler can follow Osmann on his adventures and visit the same sites, documenting his own travels in photographs. Unlike the socially, culturally, and economically diverse followership of Osmann’s digital account, these physical trips are only available to the wealthiest crust of society--these new pictures are as much symbols of wealth as they are nostalgic mementos.

As Mitchell claims, the revelation of misrepresentation often fails to expose the inadequacies of representation.[28] In other words, the exposure of historical inaccuracies can hide the mechanisms of power than underly seemingly “neutral” representations. There is a certain acceptance of innocuousness that underlies Osmann’s photography, one that is only challenged in the face of a blatant moral dilemma. In one such photo, Zakharova, robed in a dramatic, ancient Egyptian-style cloak, leads Osmann toward the Sphinx (Appendix N). Osmann captions this photograph, “Do you think @natalyaosmann looks like a Queen of Egypt?” A number of commenters took offense to this question as an appropriation of Egyptian heritage. In the words of commenter @hebabkir, “You need black hair to be the queen of Egypt.”

Egypt has long been subject to a romanticized western narrative. An unbridled fascination with Egyptology, coupled with a perception of that Egypt is politically stable and geographically isolated from the influence of other cultures, has created the dominant heuristic of “Egyptian culture.”[29] Comprised of myths and idealization, this heuristic denotes a schema of Egyptian religiosity, archaeology, history that is, in the Western mind, inextricably linked with the modern Egyptian nation. Such a heuristic acts as created knowledge, enabling a discursive power dynamic that privileges Western mischaracterizations of both ancient and modern Egypt. Egypt’s geographical proximity to Europe, Mediterranean accessibility, and control over the Sinai peninsula and Nile Delta rendered it an object of extreme European colonial interest.[30] The colonial project to gain mastery over Egypt’s economic resources uncoincidentally coincided with the 19th and 20th century fascination with Egyptology. As a result, foundational Western scholarship on Egypt is inextricable from colonial interests and oppressions.  The legacy continues today, as Egypt is still the subject of appropriation and distortion in the service of power. In the case of Osmann’s photograph, the appropriation of the ancient symbol of the “Egyptian queen” alludes to a romanticized Western narrative of ancient Egyptian history.. In assuming the role of the mythologized Egyptian queen, Zakharova perpetuates this appropriated tradition and borrows from this bastardized history.

 In Osmann’s photograph of Zakharova in front of the Sphinx, the misrepresentation is evident and exposed by commenters  calling out Zakharova for assuming this mythicized role; the commenters chip away at the Western myth of Egyptian culture. Yet, in numerous other examples, Zakharova is clothed in the dress of cultures that are not her own (Appendix O, P, I). These are accepted as representation, rather than misrepresentation, and thus do not elicit the same response—even if the represented photograph may be doing the same ideological work as the Egyptian photograph. According to Mitchell, for the European traveler to feel that what they are seeing is reality and not merely an effect, it is necessary to “excise the European presence altogether.”[31] For Osmann and the viewer alike to believe that what is depicted is “reality” and not merely an artificial representation, each must adopt a disguise. The result is that the photographer, in seeking to represent other cultures, walks a fine line between immersion and appropriation. This, according to Mitchell, is the “contradiction” faced by the travelling Westerner. In the same moment, this traveler wants to distance himself from reality in order to “render it up as an object of representation” and wishes to “experience [the world] directly.”[32] In Osmann’s photography, we see this internal battle play out, forcing the viewer to grapple with the role of the photographer and his responsibility toward his subjects.

Ariella Azoulay, Citizenship, and the Photographic Situation

The unique problem of photography is that it is often understood to represent the complete truth. Ariella Azoulay challenges us to upset this complacency toward the photograph, to “pull on one of its threads...to reopen the image...and renegotiate what it shows.”[33] As viewers, we have the power to “produce a meaning” for what is presented to us, even if the meanings we derive differs.[34] We—as individuals and as a collective—have a responsibility toward the photographic subject; indeed, this is what grants us our membership in the citizenry of photography.[35] This “citizenry” is a stateless concept. It is dictated by our willingness to consider all that surrounds and contextualizes the picture itself as existing outside the confines of the frames, and to use these considerations to acknowledge the dignity of the photographic subject. Citizenship is “a tool of a struggle or an obligation to others to struggle against injuries inflicted on those others”; it is a reciprocal responsibility, a duty that the viewer must realize if she wishes to enjoy the benefits of citizenship.[36]

Azoulay provides us with a number of tools to do this. For one, the viewer must“reconstruct...the photographic situation”; this is a “civic skill, not an exercise in aesthetic appreciation.”[37] In other words, the viewer is charged with the task of seeing what is not pictured. In one of Osmann’s recent photographs, Zakharova stands in the midsts of the umber clay as a newly-dug well spurts water (Appendix Q). The photograph is intended to promote their partnership with charity:water, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing access to clean water. Behind the well stand dozens of villagers, who watch with expressions that cannot be determined. The photograph does not depict the complex history leading up to this point. The villagers in the back are treated as little more than accessories in the photographic composition; the photograph does not depict the years of trauma of neocolonialism and parasitic activities in Africa at large. The photograph cannot “speak for itself.” To see the photograph as nothing more than an image of water coming from a well is to do an injustice to the photographic subject.[38]

Beyond reading the photographic context, it is our duty to identify injury, or a violation of citizenship, when and if one has occurred. In one photograph, Zakharova sits cross-legged on a stone block at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, engaged in the usual pose of reaching back to grab Osmann’s hand (Appendix R). A number of spectators to this photographic act immediately sensed that an injury had taken place, provoking various criticisms from commenters. @enkeli_engel asks, “How is this appropriate?...This memorial is for people who died during a war. You took this picture so you could get Instagram likes.” User @kat.uren puts it more concisely: “Bad pic 0/10 disrespectful.” Something in this photograph—a violation of some moral principle—compelled these users to act. Even in the seemingly small manner of a comment on a photograph, these users are partaking in the mutual act of conferring citizenship, and, in their recognition of an injury committed against another, working to correct a violation.

The medium of Instagram complicates the exchange of citizenship. A user may see hundreds of posts a day, and undertaking the task of dissecting the context and reading the injury is no small undertaking. For Azoulay, though, our ability to do so is a precondition of our “right” to see.[39] If we are not willing to engage with the complex and often challenging nature of photography, then we cannot claim a space in the citizenry of photography. In fact, Azoulay sees the widespread adoption of the camera as an opportunity, establishing “a new form of encounter” and one which creates “new possibilities of political action and forming new conditions for visibility.”[40] The prolific nature of photography and photo-sharing technologies is not a burden. Rather, it is an opportunity to extend the citizenry of photography--and thus the larger narrative--to those for whom it was previously inaccessible. In some ways, Osmann has done a great service to the citizenry of photography, even if he “remains totally unaware of the violence involved.”[41] With each of his photographs, the spectator encounters new possibilities for action and forming conditions for “visibility,” a new opportunity to engage in exchanges of citizenry with people all over the world.[42] Instagram, and, more specifically, Osmann’s account, creates a space that is not governed by political power, but is rather controlled by the masses.

Conclusion

As such a novel medium, Instagram presents a challenge to well-established theories of travel and photography. In an increasingly globalized and photo-centric world, Instagram operates as a litmus test for how these theories operate in reality.

A common motif is that the act of representation is perceived by the representer as one which does not interfere, which remains separate from the object represented. Pratt, Mitchell, and Azoulay have all taken interest in this phenomenon, speaking in distant terms of the writer or photographer as a separate actor. However, Instagram (and digital culture more broadly) has complicated the notion of separate actors. In the modern age, anyone with a camera phone or access to the internet is capable both of spectating and of producing representation. No longer is this reserved for the explorer who travels to far-off lands and records his observations in a notebook, the exhibitioner who, at great expense, replicates with extreme detail the streets of another city with the authority of accuracy, or the photographer who lugs his bulky camera equipment to photograph a distant region. Today, most people carry our tools of representation with us in our pockets all the time. At any point, we can snap a photograph on our phone, tweet, or post on Facebook. This has become reflexive, and often we do not think about the complexities of our digital actions. This democratization of representation means that each user has an unprecedented degree of responsibility. No longer are we merely spectators of representation; we are also producers of representation. We may not understand the full function dual capacity; yet it remains our duty to exercise our ability to represent what we see in a thoughtful manner. As we adapt to our role as producers and consumers, we can learn from Pratt, Mitchell, and Azoulay to understand ourselves as creators of representation, even as their theories are complicated by the new digital medium.

At the same time, production entails a duty to acknowledge power. When we stop to snap a picture, we must acknowledge the complex historical forces that have brought us to this moment. Our unprecedented capacity to interact with people all over the world has enormous potential to unite us, but if we engage in these relationships improperly, we have the potential to do harm and subjugate others by ignoring the legacies of power. Instagram and digital networks carry enormous potential, and also enormous danger—especially in the context of global travel. As technology continues to evolve, constant evaluation of the ability to represent and be represented is the mandate of the individual and of society.

Bibliography

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Azoulay, Ariella. The Civil Contract of Photography. Boston: MIT Press, 2008.

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“Murad Osmann.” Avant Gallery. 2019. www.avantgallery.com/murad-osmann/.

 O’Neil, Mary Lou. “Being Seen: Headscarves and the contestation of public space in Turkey.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 15, no. 2 (2008): 101-115.

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Pratt, Mary. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 2008.

Saglia, Diego. “Consuming Egypt: Appropriation and the Cultural Modalities of Romantic Luxury.” Ninteenth-Century Contexts 24, no 3 (2002): 317-332.

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[1] “Murad Osmann,” Avant Gallery, 2019, www.avantgallery.com/murad-osmann/.

[2] Josh Constine, “Instagram hits 1 billion monthly users, up from 800M in September,” TechCrunch, 20 June 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/instagram-1-billion-users/.

[3] Eunji Lee et al., “Pictures Speak Louder than Words: Motivations for Using Instagram,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 18, no. 9 (2015): 552.

[4] Eunji Lee et al., “Pictures Speak Louder than Words: Motivations for Using Instagram,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 18, no. 9 (2015): 552.

[5] Murad Osmann, “@muradosmann,” 2019, https://www.instagram.com/muradosmann/?hl=en.

[6] Murad Osmann.

[7] Mary Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 2008): 4.

[8] Mary Lou O’Neil, “Being Seen: Headscarves and the contestation of public space in Turkey,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 15, no. 2 (2008): 101.

[9] O’Neil, 102.

[10] Zeynep Akbulut, “Veiling as self-disciplining: Muslim women, Islamic discourses, and the headscarf ban in Turkey,” Contemporary Islam 9, no. 3 (2015): 433.

[11] Fuat E. Keyman, “Modernity, Secularism, and Islam: The Case of Turkey,” Theory, Culture, and Society 24, no. 2 (2007): pp. 215-234.

[12] Karl Marx, cited by Pratt, 85.

[13] Pratt, 7.

[14] Pratt, 78.

[15] Pratt, 78.

[16] Pratt, 205, 209

[17] Pratt, 51

[18] Pratt, 59

[19] Pratt, 61

[20] Pratt, 205

[21] Timothy Mitchell, “Egypt at the Exhibit,” Colonizing Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 6.

[22] Mitchell, 6.

[23] Mitchell, 24.

[24] Mitchell, 26.

[25] Mitchell, 16.

[26] Mitchell, 12.

[27] Mitchell, 20, 13.

[28] Mitchell, 18.

[29] Thomas Schneider, “Foreign Egypt: Egyptology and the concept of cultural appropriation,” Egypt and the Levant 13 (2003): 155.

[30] Diego Saglia, “Consuming Egypt: Appropriation and the Cultural Modalities of Romantic Luxury,” Ninteenth-Century Contexts 24, no 3 (2002): 318.

 [31] Mitchell, 26.

[32] Mitchell, 27.

[33] Ariella Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography (Boston: MIT Press, 2008): 13.

[34] Azoulay 14.

[35] Azoulay, 144.

[36] Azoulay, 14.

[37] Azoulay, 14.

[38] Azoulay, 27.

[39] Azoulay, 144.

[40] Azoulay, 24.

[41] Azoulay, 13.

[42] Azoulay, 24.

*See “Current Issue” pages 99-103