"Who Is Kin to Me?": Textual and Textural Intimacies in Teju Cole and Fazal Sheikh's Human Archipelago

Abstract:The figure of the refugee has long been shaped by visual grammars that codify distance, overdetermine corporeality, and constrain affect. Attending to this issue, the subversive photobook Human Archipelago pairs Fazal Sheikh's photography with Teju Cole's commentary to reframe the refugee as a site of critique, destabilize the state-citizen hierarchy, and reorient the imagined spectator. Rather than being positioned away from the refugee, the spectator is intimately with the refugee. Thus, the relation between embodied and distant is disrupted, creating what Laura Marks calls a "haptic visuality." Ultimately, this article argues that Human Archipelago mimics the intimate archives of the family photo album to (re)envision those who might be considered kin. In doing so, Cole and Sheikh attest to the imbricated process of colonization, dispossession, and racialization.