Camouflage and hybridity in postmigrant black cultures

This chapter engages with the concept of camouflage in relation to postmigrant Black cultures in the European context. I do so by analysing politics of representation and discourses on agency within contemporary Afrodiasporic identities while focusing on artistic photographic objects. By means of “blending in”, the supposedly ‘marginalised’ are being frequently composed to conform to their surroundings in the realm of visual culture. Here, the idea of camouflage as a recurring principle in Black representation forms a mode of political agency. Implementing alternating modes of alignment, affiliation, and indiscernibility, the ambiguous camouflaging subject reinforces political agency to subvert and resist humiliation. Acknowledging the postmigrant subject or group as having the potential position of seizing multiple coexisting cultural perspectives, this chapter argues that a camouflage principle draws attention towards critical reflections on social guises versus skilful means of empowerment beyond institutional prerequisites.