Elizabeth's Gleaning

For me these two readings both touch upon the same idea; identity as a performance. Rather than being born with our identities we are constantly tweak and act out how we want to be perceived. We constantly perform our gender, race and class in everyday life. The way I dress and act intimates something about all three of these. Thus from this I can see how an image and photography is crucial in constructing identity. Smith's article is a great example of how race and eugenics were performed through the use of photographic images. Images of healthy babies and genealogies reaffirmed people's middle classness and race by creating visual 'proof' of these characteristics. The sense of peril of losing the anglo saxon race further enforces the performative aspect of identity and it was the women, as the bearers of the race, who were the ones most involved in acting this identity out. Bell's reading also speaks to this performance when he describes how the camera allowed the black community to take charge of their identity and image. The camera allowed the black community to dispel the subordinate image presented by "salt shakers, cookie jars and pancake boxes."

Simply put, the image and the camera are a powerful weapons for creating identity. A modern example of this would be facebook, where each individual's profile contains images representing a person's "identity." These images are actively chosen by the individual, which shows how people are agents in creating, or performing, their own identities.