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I alluded to it at the time, but I found the snapshot of August Sander's monumental photographic series People Of The Twentieth Century that was exhibited at the National Museum Cardiff a few years ago quite unsettling in one particular respect. Portraits are typically intimate and personal - and yet Sander deliberately avoided identifying his subjects by name, instead classifying them by occupation or social status. In that way, they were depersonalised - designated as representatives or stereotypes rather than as fully rounded individuals.

There's no suggestion that Sander's motives were sinister, but I was reminded of his series by this Guardian article on a new exhibition in Delhi accompanying the publication of a book entitled Typecasting: Photographing The Peoples Of India 1855-1920. In it, Amrit Dhillon makes clear that the portraits of anonymous subjects made by the British were part of a larger colonial project to categorise the Indian people, "the better to understand their motivations, personality traits and customs in order to more effectively exert control".

For those of us who retain at least a modicum of faith in the power of photography as a means of bringing about positive change, as a tool for resistance and liberation, it's sobering to be confronted with an example of it being used for exactly the opposite purpose.