Photography in Africa : ethnographic perspectives

Author(s)

    • Vokes, Richard

Bibliographic Information

Photography in Africa : ethnographic perspectives

edited by Richard Vokes

J. Currey, c2012

  • pbk

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Gives an ethnographic account of the complexities of the use of photography in Africa, both historically and in contemporary practice. This collection of studies in African photography examines, through a series of empirically rich historical and ethnographic cases, the variety of ways in which photographs are produced, circulated, and engaged across a range of social contexts. In so doing, it elucidates the distinctive characteristics of African photographic practices and cultures, vis-a-vis those of other forms of 'vernacular photography' worldwide. In addition, these studies develop areflexive turn, examining the history of academic engagement with these African photographic cultures, and reflecting on the distinctive qualities of the ethnographic method as a means for studying such phenomena. The volumecritically engages current debates in African photography and visual anthropology. First, it extends our understanding of the variety of ways in which both colonial and post-colonial states in Africa have used photography as a means for establishing, and projecting, their authority. Second, it moves discussion of African photography away from an exclusive focus on the role of the 'the studio' and looks at the circulations through which the studios' products - the photographs themselves - later pass as artefacts of material culture. Last, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of the relationship between photography and ethnographic research methods, as these have been employed in Africa. RICHARD VOKES is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia, and author of Ghosts of Kanungu

Table of Contents

Introduction - Part I Photography & the Ethnographic Encounter - Richard Vokes Double Alienation: Evans-Pritchard's Zande & Nuer Photographs in Comparative Perspective - Christopher Morton Photographing 'the Bridge': Product & Process in the Analysis of a Social Situation in Non-modern Zululand - Chris Wingfield Frontier Photographs: Northern Kenya & the Paul Baxter Collection - Neil Carrier and Kimo Quaintance Memories of a Blue Nile Home: Still Picture, Moving Contexts & Multimedia Linkage - Wendy James Memories of a Blue Nile Home: Still Picture, Moving Contexts & Multimedia Linkage - Part II Picturing the Nation: Photography, Memory & Resistance - Judith Aston Emptying the Gallery: The Archive's Fuller Circle - Erin Haney 'Ca Bouscoulait!': Democratization & Photography in Senegal - Jennifer Bajorek 'A Once & Future Eden': Gorongosa National Park & the Making of Mozambique - Katie McKeown Reflections on Urban Space, the Visual & Political Affect in Kabila's Kinshasa - Part III The Social Life of Photographs - Katrien Pype On 'the Ultimate Patronage Machine': Photography & Substantial Relations in Rural South-western Uganda - Richard Vokes 'The Terror of the Feast': Photography, Textiles & Memory in Weddings along the East African Coast - Heike Behrend Ceremonies, Sitting Rooms & Albums: How Okiek Displayed Photographs in the 1990s - Corinne Kratz

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