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Historian Elspeth H. Brown and photographer Sara Davidmann explore the relationship between the family photograph album, trans☼ history, and queer archives. Describing their queer archival work, they address topics including ethics; intertwined histories of racism, colonialism, and normativity in photography; and the violent erasures of sexual and gender minorities within the conventional family photography album. “Family” photographs, so central to the affective production of trans☼ family, however defined, have not been the site of sustained discussion within queer history. Brown and Davidmann argue that family photography can also be a site of trans☼ family belonging and queer kinship, despite histories of violent erasure. They discuss these issues with reference to two image sets from Davidmann's work: one from her own family of origin (Ken. To be destroyed) and one from her (queer and trans☼) family of choice (the Stephen Whittle family album).

This article describes the relationship between family photography, oral history, and feeling. The authors explore questions about affect and family photography in relationship to black, queer relationality and to Asian, diasporic subjectivities. They argue that the affective modality of family photography for marginalized subjects is that of ‘mixed feelings’, which they analyze through a focus on ‘aspiration’ as central to the visual and affective discourses of family photography, oral history, and diaspora. Working with recent work by Christina Sharpe and Tina Campt, the authors describe aspiration within family photography as indexing both the normative temporalities of capitalist futurity and, at the same time, a utopian technology of black futurity that enables the making of necessary futures outside of white supremacy and heteronormativity. The research is part of a larger photography and oral history project, The Family Camera Network, which the article describes.

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