Children in Focus: Photography and the Portrayal of Progress in Ecuador's Ministry Bulletins

Angela Corsa, University of Arizona

In this study I use photography as a tool to trace connections between the depiction of healthy children and the health of the nation. In Ecuador, children “in focus” had appeared in the Bulletin of the Ministry (formerly the Department) of Social Welfare and Labor by the 1940s, as they began to include photographs in its publication. This Bulletin, published since 1935, addressed in part the health and welfare of children. Enhanced by photographs, it drew attention to alleged successes in tackling the “child problem”: high rates of mortality and morbidity and overall welfare. Pictures of girls smiling with their companions at a physical recovery colony, children standing in the distance outside of a child protection home, and young boys from a work school swinging gardening tools at an outdoor festival to show off their “workshop activities” indicated progress, development, and care. They also raised questions about changes in government policies and government intervention. Placed alongside publications by other agencies, such as the Ministry of Education, I explore depictions of children’s bodies as sites of government intervention.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 141. Medical Photography, Images, and Interpretive Power in the Americas: Gendered Perspectives