Public Consumption of Disability: UN Postwar Photography and Film

This is an ongoing digital history project that seeks to explore the perception of disability in the global imagination, informed and reinforced by the images and tropes of postwar humanitarian photography. This project looks at the United Nations' vast archives of photographs, films, posters, and other visual sources disseminated to the general public for consumption. Using data from the UN and World Health Organization's audiovisual archives, this project aims to map location, photographer, period, and the language used in accompanying photo captions to help contextualize the postwar construction of “the disabled.”

A version of this project will be presented through the Center for History and Economics.

This site primarily showcases the digital methodology and dataset in an interactive visual format that supports the historical narrative presented on the UN History website.