Justice Denied

Abstract

In the latter part of the 20th Century the dominance of the sciences, and the dictatorial tone of the researcher's voice, were challenged and gave way to the acceptance of the non-rational elements of the human experience as being fundamental to any understanding of human practice. Today, photodocumentary practice, a discipline that blends ethnographic research methodologies, investigative journalism and the politics of the aesthetic, relies on visual images to capture and disseminate the rational and non-rational components of the human condition. Justice Denied is a biographical (visual and text) paper that combines two stories of indigenous groups whose life chances are significantly altered and diminished because of the social space they occupy. In 2006 Blakely and Lloyd completed an in-field trip working with indigenous youth in a regional town in northern Queensland. Through interview, documentary images and commentary by the authors, "We're talking...anyone listening?" gives voice to this marginalized group. Using a similar methodology, Blakely and Lloyd returned to Rwanda in 2006, and again in 2008, to collect and tell the stories of survivors of the Rwanda Genocide twelve years on. "Never Again" builds on the work produced from the commission they received to document aspects of the Rwanda Crisis in 1994. Combined into the one paper, "Justice Denied" provides a conduit through which the stories of marginalized people may be told. In addition it raises issues concerning documentary practice and social inquiry.