Photography's Other Histories

Photography's Other Histories

  • Author: Pinney, Christopher; Peterson, Nicolas; Thomas, Nicholas; Driessens, Jo-Anne; Aird, Michael
  • Publisher: Duke University Press
  • Serie: Objects/histories
  • ISBN: 9780822331261
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780822384717
  • Place of publication:  Durham , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 2003
  • Month: April
  • Pages: 295
  • DDC: 770
  • Language: English
Moving the critical debate about photography away from its current Euro-American center of gravity, Photography’s Other Histories breaks with the notion that photographic history is best seen as the explosion of a Western technology advanced by the work of singular individuals. This collection presents a radically different account, describing photography as a globally disseminated and locally appropriated medium. Essays firmly grounded in photographic practice—in the actual making of pictures—suggest the extraordinary diversity of nonwestern photography.

Richly illustrated with over 100 images, Photography’s Other Histories explores from a variety of regional, cultural, and historical perspectives the role of photography in raising historical consciousness. It includes two first-person pieces by indigenous Australians and one by a Seminole/Muskogee/Dine' artist. Some of the essays analyze representations of colonial subjects—from the limited ways Westerners have depicted Navajos to Japanese photos recording the occupation of Manchuria to the changing "contract" between Aboriginal subjects and photographers. Other essays highlight the visionary quality of much popular photography. Case studies centered in early-twentieth-century Peru and contemporary India, Kenya, and Nigeria chronicle the diverse practices that have flourished in postcolonial societies. Photography’s Other Histories recasts popular photography around the world, as not simply reproducing culture but creating it.

Contributors.
Michael Aird, Heike Behrend, Jo-Anne Driessens, James Faris, Morris Low, Nicolas Peterson, Christopher Pinney, Roslyn Poignant, Deborah Poole, Stephen Sprague, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Christopher Wright

  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Christopher Pinney. Introduction: "How the Other Half . . ."
  • 1. Personal Archives
    • Jo-Anne Driessens. Relating to Photographs
    • Michael Aird. Growing Up with Aborigines
    • Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie. When Is a Photograph Worth a Thousand Words?
  • 2. Visual Economies
    • Roslyn Poignant. The Making of Professional "Savages": From P. T. Barnum (1883) to the Sunday Times (1998)
    • James Faris. Navajo and Photography
    • Morris Low. The Japanese Colonial Eye: Science, Exploration, and Empire
    • Nicolas Peterson. The Changing Photographic Contract: Aborigines and Image Ethics
    • Christopher Wright. Supple Bodies: The Papua New Guinea Photographs of Captain Francis R. Barton, 1899–1907
  • 3. Self-Fashioning and Vernacular Modernism
    • Deborah Poole. Figueroa Aznar and the Cusco Indigenistas: Photography and Modernism in Early-Twentieth-Century Peru
    • Christopher Pinney. Notes from the Surface of the Image: Photography, Postcolonialism, and Vernacular Modernism
    • Heike Behrend. Imagined Journeys: The Likoni Ferry Photographers of Mombasa, Kenya
    • Stephen Sprague. Yoruba Photography: How the Yoruba See Themselves
  • Works Cited
  • Contributors
  • Index

Subjects

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