Unseeing Photography: Academic Freedom and Human Rights after Tiananmen

This paper explores the presentation of a contentious image in the space of an international classroom. The image, known as Tank Man, has come to signify much more than the student pro-democracy protests, and subsequent government response in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Seen by the West to exemplify a ‘moral bottom-line’ regarding China’s human rights abuses, it has been subsequently banned in China. How might presentation of this image be problematic for those students compromised by what they should not see? What are the limits of ‘academic freedom’ in such situations? The issue of whether to reproduce the image in this article serves as an interesting case in point. We develop a practice of unseeing that may help us understand how an image can reduce complex historical relations to a divisive symbol of national interest. We consider the West’s own hypocrisy in its reference to China’s human rights record through an image that often remains only partially analyzed by those who claim to see it.