Photography’s Other Histories

296 Pages·2003·11.576 MB·English

by  Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson

Photography’sOtherHistories
objects/histories
CriticalPerspectiveson
Art,MaterialCulture,
andRepresentation
AserieseditedbyNicholasThomas
Photography’s Other Histories
Edited by Christopher Pinneyand Nicolas Peterson
duke university press DurhamandLondon 2003
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
ChristopherPinney
Introduction:‘‘HowtheOtherHalf...’’ 1
1. personal archives
Jo-AnneDriessens
RelatingtoPhotographs 17
MichaelAird
GrowingUpwithAborigines 23
HulleahJ.Tsinhnahjinnie
WhenIsaPhotographWorthaThousandWords? 40
2. visual economies
RoslynPoignant
TheMakingofProfessional‘‘Savages’’:FromP.T.Barnum
(1883)totheSundayTimes(1998) 55
JamesFaris
NavajoandPhotography 85
MorrisLow
TheJapaneseColonialEye:Science,Exploration,
andEmpire 100
NicolasPeterson
TheChangingPhotographicContract:Aborigines
andImageEthics 119
ChristopherWright
SuppleBodies:ThePapuaNewGuineaPhotographsof
CaptainFrancisR.Barton,1899–1907 146
3. self-fashioning and vernacular modernism
DeborahPoole
FigueroaAznarandtheCuscoIndigenistas:Photography
andModernisminEarly-Twentieth-CenturyPeru 173
ChristopherPinney
NotesfromtheSurfaceoftheImage:Photography,
Postcolonialism,andVernacularModernism 202
HeikeBehrend
ImaginedJourneys:TheLikoniFerryPhotographersof
Mombasa,Kenya 221
StephenSprague
YorubaPhotography:HowtheYorubaSeeThemselves 240
WorksCited 261
Contributors 277
Index 279
Acknowledgments
This volume has its origins in a cooperativeventure between the newly
established Australian Research Council’s Special Research Centre, the
Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National Univer-
sity, and the Queensland Museum. On 8 and 9 November 1997 a confer-
ence was held at the museum, convened by Michael Aird (Queensland
Museum),NicholasThomas(directoroftheCentreforCross-CulturalRe-
search),andNicolasPeterson(SchoolofArchaeologyandAnthropology,
AustralianNationalUniversity)underthetitleLookingthroughPhotographs:
Indigenous Histories, Presences, and Representations. Among thewide range of
papers presented were a number from practicing Aboriginal photogra-
phers,someofwhichhavesincebeenpublishedelsewhere.Thisvolume
includesaselectionofpaperspresentedattheconference,alongwithtwo
newpapers,andreprintsofthreeseminalessaysthatrelatetothetheme
ofthevolume.
Weareindebtedtoawiderangeofpeopleforassistanceinpreparingthis
volume.Theconferencewouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthegener-
ous funding and support of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research and
itsdirector.TheQueenslandMuseumgenerouslyhostedit.Fororganizing
theconferencewewouldparticularlyliketothankJennyNewell,whodid
amarvellousjobofoverseeingitssmoothoperationandthenfollowedthis
withthepreliminaryworkonthepreparationofthisvolume.IanBryson,
TsariAnderson,andSallyWardalsoablyassistedintheproductionofthis
volume.
WewouldalsoliketothanktheeditorofAfricanArtsandMarilynHoul-
bergforpermissiontoreprintStephenSprague’sessay,whichappearedin
AfricanArts12(1)(1978);DeborahPooleandtheeditorofRepresentationsfor
permissiontoreprintanabridgedversionofheressay,whichappearedin
Representations38(spring1992);andHulleahJ.Tsinhnahjinnieandtheedi-
torof Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography (1998; edited by Jane
Alison;London:BarbicanArtGallery)forpermissiontoreprintheressay.
viii Acknowledgments
Christopher Pinney
Introduction
‘‘HOW THE OTHER HALF...’’
D
uringthetenyearsbetween1877and1887,throughwhichJacobRiis
wasdeliveringhisimpassionedlecturesconcerningNewYork’s‘‘in-
visible’’poor,photography—whichhesofamouslychampioned—reached
anewevidentiarycrescendo.HowtheOtherHalfLives:StudiesamongtheTene-
mentsofNewYork(1890),Riis’sexplosiveconjunctionofwordsandimages,
has rightly taken a central place among works on the historyof photog-
raphy,foritwasafulcrumofphotography’scollisionwithpoliticsandlife
andanexemplarycaseoftheimage’sabilitytoreconfigureitsreferent.Riis
openedhisworkwiththeobservationthat‘‘onehalfoftheworlddoesnot
knowhowtheotherhalflives’’(1997[1890],5),andheusedphotographyasa
shamanictraceexportedfromonedemiworldtotheother.Thecollection
of essays in this volumewas precipitated by the realization that photog-
raphyitselfisnowinneedofasimilarrevelationofitsownotherhalf,its
owndisavowedotherhistory.
Thisvolumeseekstochangethefocusofthecriticaldebateaboutphoto-
graphic practice. Byabandoning the notion that photographic history is
best seen as the explosion of a Western technology whose practice has
beenmoldedbysingularindividuals,Photography’sOtherHistoriespresents
a radically different account of a globally disseminated and locally ap-
propriated medium. In its details of the significance of colonial photo-
graphicpracticeintheformationofmetropolitanself-identity,thebook
alsopresentscasestudiesofcontemporaryphotographicself-fashioning.
Further, it addresses the importance of photographic records in the his-