Framing Poverty : A Case Study and Visual Analysis of Oxfam’s Representation of Poverty

Sammanfattning

International non-governmental organisations, or INGOs, as the name suggests, are organisations working outside any form of government funding or leadership. The said international organisations, to operate, need funding. Since the organisations are not government-owned or funded, their income comes from the public, either from private donors or institutions supporting their causes. To achieve the desired funding, the INGOs often produce and circulate visual representations of poverty that work as tools of persuasion. Despite noble goals, the representations of poverty may present an unfair version of reality that they are aimed at fixing. This Master’s thesis focuses on the visual representation of poverty created and circulated by an INGO called Oxfam. The visual materials meant for the analyses were created after the COVID-19 global pandemic. The methods applied for the analysis are the case study and the visual research methods. The analysis is also supported by theories drawn from relevant literature, the theories of representation, particularly the constructionist approach, Nandita Dogra’s theories, particularly the logic of difference and oneness and Hammad Shabbir’s critique of white saviourism and poverty porn. The analysis aims to answer the main question being the leading theme of the thesis: How has Oxfam created visual representations of poverty after the COVID-19 global pandemic?