Lettere di antropologia visiva explores photography as a device of identity construction and political testimony. The first part investigates the origin of the photographic gaze: from the first childhood images to adolescence, from the selfie as social performance to photography as therapeutic practice and confrontation with death. The second part analyses the image in contexts of collective trauma such as 11 September or war photographs, from global poverty (Dorothea Lange, Matt Black) to visual neocolonialism, up to contemporary migrations. Interweaving psychoanalysis, feminist theory and cultural studies - also through the works of Letizia Battaglia, James Nachtwey, Sebastião Salgado, Zanele Muholi and Palestinian photographers - the volume interrogates the power of the image.