Salvadoran chiaroscuro. The photograph in the guerrilla propaganda

Abstract

The present study provides a general overview of the photographic production of the Salvadorian guerilla organizations who, following the Leninist idea of using the press as an instrument for combat, established counterhegemonic press and propaganda structures.

Because the vast majority of the guerilla archives were disarticulated, mutilated and largely lost either during the conflict or in the post-war era, the guerilla publications that were reviewed for this work are seen as instruments that relate the photographic production to the use that it was given. Since the oral history method was fundamental to reconstruct the contexts of the production, focalized interviews of political leaders, operation managers and militant photographers were performed. After analyzing the data, it was observed that all the armed organizations generated photographs using their own specific structures or through agreements with international journalists. The images were utilized for a variety of purposes, from decoration to quasi autonomous vehicles that transmit a message. Through photography, the armed organizations represented themselves in positive terms, making good use of the mimetic character of photography with reality, and its «documentary aura» as strategic elements to spark solidarity.

Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, n° 10, july-december 2017: 87-138