ABOUT
“This is evidence. This will let the people learn how we live our lives here.”
These words from an undocumented Bangladeshi migrant man working in Greece sum up the impetus behind this multi-media social justice project of Photovoice with South Asian migrant men in Greece. “This” refers to images and videos taken by these men about their migrant reality.
This exhibition puts together South Asian migrant men’s voices and testimonies, visual and oral, that they consider important to share with the larger world. All images and videos were taken either by the research collaborator, Reena Kukreja, at the behest of the men who pointed out what needed to be documented, or by the men themselves who would often take her camera or cell phone to click photos.
By centring migrant subjectivities, this photovoice-based multi-media exhibition gives voice and power back to the migrant workers by allowing them a medium to present themselves unmediated and directly to diverse sets of audiences. The migrant men, by showing their reality as workers, seek to draw attention to the similarity of migrant labour precarity and exploitation globally. For them, this project is a political act of resistance. They recognise all other avenues to get their viewpoint across to policy makers and ordinary people are closed to them. Through photovoice, they seek to give voice and power back to all migrant workers and thus disrupt dominant narratives of othering because of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, migrant illegality, and low-class status.
The Beginning
It all began with a plate of Biryani. A close up shot of a heaping plate of biryani arrived in my WhatsApp account from Anayat (pseudonym), an undocumented male migrant from Pakistan. My curiosity aroused, I texted back, “yeh kya ha?” or “what is it all about?” He called me right back and said, “Biryani. I made it. It’s my ammijan or mother’s recipe.” He appeared proud that he had made the biryani the exact way as his mother had taught him and that it tasted just as if his ammijan had cooked it.
The unsolicited image was layered with complex meanings. It carried a subtext of loneliness and nostalgia usually experienced by migrants in culturally alien spaces, and how they often seek to bridge it by recreating “remembered” dishes prepared by loving ones back home. Anayat desired to be a caring and an equal partner to his future wife in a relationship where he could also cook for her. The image and his family aspiration disrupted stereotypes of young South Asian Muslim men as uncaring and deviant men to be feared.
Other men sent images and videos of leisure, collective meals, harsh work conditions, and decrepit migrant housing. The process allowed for a dialogue to emerge from their side, one in which they could have deeper conversations about their intimate lives, desires, concerns, worries, and preoccupations. This was the start of the collaboration, “This is Evidence.”
The Participants
This digital photovoice archive and the travelling exhibition emerges from the work of four groups of South Asian migrant men. Three groups comprised Bangladeshi men working as flexible labour in the strawberry agribusiness in Manolada. The fourth consisted of Pakistani men engaged in the informal economy in Athens. These groups have sought to provide insider perspectives to their precarity and disposability as “illegal” migrant workers in Greece.
Manob Sewa or Service to the Humanity was the name chosen by a group of ten undocumented Bangladeshi workers from Manolada for their photovoice group. They came together in the summer of 2019 with the main objective to showcase the impact of migrant illegality on workers’ rights to decent housing. “We participate to get our voice heard. We want change in the way people view us and our plight.”
Probasi Kalyan Sangathan or the Migrant Welfare Collective is another Bangladeshi migrant workers group that was active from October to December 2021 in Manolada. They chose this name for their photovoice group to bring positive change in the lives of migrant workers everywhere. “Without papers (legal status), we are exploited by the farmers. The Greek state is aware of our exploitation. How else can you explain the presence of over 9,000 illegal workers here in ‘season’? Our cheap labour is dependent on our not having papers.”
Aashar Alo or Hope for the Future was a group of migrant Bangladeshi workers from Lappa near Manolada who came together from December 2019 until May 2020. For them, regularised resident status in Greece that guarantees fair wages and worker rights has been central in their work. Their aashar alo or hope for the future is for agrarian workers to have rights that are due to them, not just in Greece but everywhere in the world.
A group of undocumented Pakistani men working in the informal economy in Athens, because of the transient nature of their jobs, migrant status, and concerns about a safe meeting space, chose to send photos individually to Reena Kukreja instead of formalising a photovoice group that could meet as a collective. From 2018 onwards until mid-2021, they shared pictures and messages with Reena as they documented the shifts in their lives due to increased surveillance. For them, getting together collectively in a physical space and to discuss the objective of photovoice was fraught with concerns about surveillance, arrests, and detention. As Muslim men, they seek to destabilize stereotypes about Muslim men as dangerous, misogynists, and uncaring towards families.
Photovoice Collaborator-Curator
My name is Reena Kukreja. I am a documentary filmmaker-turned-academic seeking to balance my time between teaching, research, and filmmaking. With over two decades of making award-winning documentaries on rural women in India and South Asia, and teaching in the department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University in Canada, I went to Greece to research the largely hidden experiences of undocumented South Asian male migrant agricultural workers in that country. This visual collaborative social justice project emerged as an offshoot from my on-going research in Greece that examines how labour migration, undocumented status, and immigration policies shape masculine identity formation, family formation, and the politics of citizenship among undocumented South Asian migrant men there.
As a filmmaker, I recognize the value and impact of images to convey messages non-didactically to people and so I was immediately drawn to the idea of Photovoice as a method to support conversations between migrant men themselves and between the men and the public and policy makers.
My co-ethnic insider positionality as a diasporic South Asian woman with family roots in Pakistan and India and fluency in the men’s languages, Urdu, Punjabi, and Bangla, has proven valuable in building rapport and trust. It has also allowed me to bridge differences in migrant status, class, and gender identity, and to act as their cultural interpreter. The men seek to use my “privilege” as a co-ethnic academic to mediate their perspective, through this exhibition, with a larger audience. When asked why they collaborate, many have stated, “because we trust you. After all, you are one of us. Maybe you can help getting our voice heard.”
