Photography's Other Histories SYNOPSIS
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 one hundred images, Photography's Other
Histories explores from a variety of geographic, cultural, and historic
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 and from the
changing nature of the "contract" between Aboriginal subjects and
photographers to the surprising range of cultural influences evident in the
photographs colonialist F. R. Barton took in New Guinea in the late 1800s
and early 1900s. Focusing on photographic self-fashioning and the
development of vernacular modernisms, 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
Editor(s) Bio:
Christopher Pinney is Reader in Anthropology and Visual Culture at
University College London. He is author of Camera Indica: The Social Life of
Indian Photographs and coeditor of Pleasure and the Nation and Beyond
Aesthetics. Nicolas Peterson is Reader in Anthropology at the Australian
National University. He is coauthor of Aboriginal Territorial Organization.
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