Poor Images, Repaired Stories: In Defense of Imagistic History and Ethnography

Abstract: In this article, I examine how broken, degraded, or faded photographic images can open new ways of writing the authorial self in historical and ethnographic inquiry. Starting from a worn-out photograph of my Muslim great-grandfather, executed during Stalin's Great Terror in Adjara, Georgia, I explore how compromised family images invite a more imaginative engagement with the past and present, decentering the official imperial archives and narratives. Reflecting on my grandmother's practices of preserving and remaking photos, alongside my own experiments with analog and AI-generated imagery, I trace how authorship moves across generations and media, shaped by shifting political and technological conditions. I argue that placing the authorial self at the center of such visual and narrative work allows for an imagistic mode of interpretation that holds affect, repair, and imagination as essential components of knowledge production. This approach enables forms of historical and ethnographic analysis that open alternative ways of engaging violent pasts and their lingering presence in times of renewed authoritarianism.