When people think of literature it might be Crime and Punishment, perhaps To the Lighthouse, or For Whom the Bell Tolls that springs to mind. But most would not readily consider the mobile phone self-portrait - more commonly known as the selfie - a piece of literature.
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But that is the case writer and researcher Roanna Gonsalves is making. More than a narcissistic gesture, Dr Gonsalves argues that the selfie can be understood as literature. Selfies, she says, offer a powerful and liberating form of self-expression, particularly for those who have been marginalised.
"A selfie is a photograph of a person who has taken the photo of themselves so it is also a form of self-representation. For people who have not been able to represent themselves this selfie offers a way to do that," Dr Gonsalves said.
"I'm also trying to think of the selfie as a metaphor of self-representation of people telling their own stories rather than other people from powerful cultures telling the stories of people with very little power."
Rather than seeing selfie-as-pathology, Dr Gonsalves believes that selfie culture offers a way to "write back". The power of the selfie lies in giving people an opportunity to make themselves seen and to define themselves on their own terms.
"It's 'see me showing you me'," Dr Gonsalves, who is based in Sydney, said.
"I think it can be a really powerful tool."
"People use selfies for lots of different things ... I think to just dismiss selfies as narcissistic is missing the point of what it is actually happening."
Through blogs and social media, Dr Gonsalves believes that selfies can offer a form of resistance against unrealistic ideals of beauty.
In India, Dr Gonsalves said, some sexual assault survivors have used Snapchat filters such as the dragon to take video selfies where they can protect their identity but still talk about their experience.
The subject of voice is one that Dr Gonsalves is intensely interested in, and it runs through her debut collection of short stories The Permanent Resident. The stories explore the lives of Indian migrants in Australia.
" I really wanted to write about people that I didn't really see much of in Australian literature. People who are highly visible in contemporary Australian life, in petrol stations, restaurants, driving cabs, but they were not really represented in literature," Dr Gonsalves said.
"I wanted to actually make a contribution to that tradition of writing about immigrants at the coalface of Australian life."
Dr Gonsalves, who came to Australia as an international student in 1998, said she believed there were systemic and personal barriers that prevented more migrant voices from being published.
"As a first generation migrant you need to find a job that's going to pay your bills, you don't have the support system here. When you're doing that it's really hard to also do creative work. There is nothing in the tank at the end of the day to create something when you've spent 12 to 14 hours working," Dr Gonsalves said.
Dr Gonsalves is a guest of the Sydney Writers Festival.
