Family Photographs in Displacement

Family photographs matter to people living in displacement. People displaced from their homes commonly describe family photographs as among the personal items they gather up and take with them. Family photographs also get left behind and can be destroyed or lost. Photographs may be produced en route to another place and they can be shared between family members in different locales. Pitt draws on existing research across diverse literatures to present key contemporary understandings about the relations between people and their family photographs in displacement. The current state of knowledge about the kinds of spatialities, temporalities, and emotions experienced and produced as people and photographs interact in displacement is surveyed. The chapter includes a discussion of potential future directions for research involving photographs and people in displacement.