Her photograph is titled “Taping the Tapeur.”

In 2024, the PhD candidate in cultural anthropology conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Paris with a self-organized collective of recently arrived young West African migrants who employ the discourse of colonial debt — debt owed by France to its former colonies — to claim a right to stay legally in France.

The photo was taken at Place de la Bastille in Paris last November. “That day,” she writes, “the Collectif de Belleville, supported by the Paris sans-papiers coalition, organized a rally to demand access to housing and education. The photo shows a French ally taping the fingers of a West African ‘tapeur’ (from the French verb taper; to hit in English) who will play the djembe during three hours at the head of the caravan.”

In addition to having their images displayed at the Graduate Center, the four winners receive $250.