Photography in Africa

Photography in Africa
Author: Richard Vokes
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2012
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1847010539

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-à-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

The African Studies Companion

The African Studies Companion
Author: Hans Zell
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 863
Release: 2021-11-15
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 9004502157

Published in dual print and electronic formats, this is a new edition of a much acclaimed reference source that brings together a wide range of sources of information in the African studies field, covering both print and electronic sources. It evaluates the best online resources, the major general reference tools in print format, current bibliographies and indexing services, biographical, cartographic, statistical and economic resources, as well as film and video resources. Additionally, there are separate sections on African studies library collections and repositories throughout the world, a directory of over 250 African studies journals; listings of news sources, profiles of publishers active in the African studies field, dealers and distributors of African studies materials, African studies societies and associations, major African and international organizations, donor agencies and foundations, awards and prizes in African studies, electronic mailing lists and discussion forums, and more.

Women and Photography in Africa

Women and Photography in Africa
Author: Darren Newbury
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 100018269X

This collection explores women’s multifaceted historical and contemporary involvement in photography in Africa. The book offers new ways of thinking about the history of photography, exploring through case studies the complex and historically specific articulations of gender and photography on the continent, and attending to the challenge and potential of contemporary feminist and postcolonial engagements with the medium. The volume is organised in thematic sections that present the lives and work of historically significant yet overlooked women photographers, as well as the work of acclaimed contemporary African women photographers such as Héla Ammar, Fatoumata Diabaté, Lebohang Kganye and Zanele Muholi. The book offers critical reflections on the politics of gendered knowledge production and the production of racialised and gendered identities and alternative and subaltern subjectivities. Several chapters illuminate how contemporary African women photographers, collectors and curators are engaging with colonial photographic archives to contest stereotypical forms of representation and produce powerful counter-histories. Raising critical questions about race, gender and the history of photography, the collection provides a model for interdisciplinary feminist approaches for scholars and students of art history, visual studies and African history.

Photography and Its Origins

Photography and Its Origins
Author: Tanya Sheehan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2014-11-20
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1317578953

Recent decades have seen a flourishing interest in and speculation about the origins of photography. Spurred by rediscoveries of ‘first’ photographs and proclamations of photography’s death in the digital age, scholars have been rethinking who and what invented the medium. Photography and Its Origins reflects on this interest in photography’s beginnings by reframing it in critical and specifically historiographical terms. How and why do we write about the origins of the medium? Whom or what do we rely on to construct those narratives? What’s at stake in choosing to tell stories of photography’s genesis in one way or another? And what kind of work can those stories do? Edited by Tanya Sheehan and Andrés Mario Zervigón, this collection of 16 original essays, illustrated with 32 colour images, showcases prominent and emerging voices in the field of photography studies. Their research cuts across disciplines and methodologies, shedding new light on old questions about histories and their writing. Photography and Its Origins will serve as a valuable resource for students and scholars in art history, visual and media studies, and the history of science and technology.

The African Photographic Archive

The African Photographic Archive
Author: Christopher Morton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2020-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 100021138X

African photography has emerged as a significant focus of research and scholarship over the last twenty years, the result of a growing interest in postcolonial societies and cultures and a turn towards visual evidence across the humanities and social sciences. At the same time, many rich and fascinating photographic collections have come to light. This volume explores the complex theoretical and practical issues involved in the study of African photographic archives, based on case studies drawn from across the continent dating from the 19th century to the present day. Chapters consider what constitutes an archive, from the familiar mission and state archives to more local, vernacular and personal accumulations of photographs; the importance of a critical and reflexive engagement with photographic collections; and the question of where and what is ‘Africa’, as constructed in the photographic archive. Essential reading for all researchers working with photographic archives, this book consolidates current thinking on the topic and sets the agenda for future research in this field.

African Studies in the Digital Age

African Studies in the Digital Age
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2014-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004279148

African Studies in the Digital Age. DisConnects? seeks to understand the complex changes brought about by the digital revolution. The editors, Terry Barringer and Marion Wallace, have brought together librarians, archivists, researchers and academics from three continents to analyse the creation and use of digital research resources and archives in and about Africa. The volume reveals new opportunities for research, teaching and access, as well as potential problems and digital divides. Published under the aegis of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa), this new work is a major step forward in understanding the impact of the Internet Age for the study of Africa, in and beyond the continent. Contributors are: Terry Barringer, Hartmut Bergenthum, Natalie Bond, Mirjam de Bruijn, Ian Cooke, Jos Damen, Jonathan Harle, Diana Jeater, Rebecca Kahn, Peter Limb, Lucia Lovison-Golob, Walter Gam Nkwi, Jenni Orme, Daniel A. Reboussin, Ashley Rockenbach, Amidu Sanni, Simon Tanner, Edgar C. Taylor, Laurie N. Taylor, Marion Wallace, Massimo Zaccaria

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography
Author: John Hannavy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1629
Release: 2013-12-16
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1135873275

The Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of world photography up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It sets out to be the standard, definitive reference work on the subject for years to come. Its coverage is global – an important ‘first’ in that authorities from all over the world have contributed their expertise and scholarship towards making this a truly comprehensive publication. The Encyclopedia presents new and ground-breaking research alongside accounts of the major established figures in the nineteenth century arena. Coverage includes all the key people, processes, equipment, movements, styles, debates and groupings which helped photography develop from being ‘a solution in search of a problem’ when first invented, to the essential communication tool, creative medium, and recorder of everyday life which it had become by the dawn of the twentieth century. The sheer breadth of coverage in the 1200 essays makes the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography an essential reference source for academics, students, researchers and libraries worldwide.

Photography and History in Colonial Southern Africa

Photography and History in Colonial Southern Africa
Author: Lorena Rizzo
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2019-09-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429800037

This book studies the relationship between photography and history in colonial Southern Africa, using a series of encounters with Southern African photographic archives to reflect on photography as a distinct historical form. Through use of private and public archives, images produced by African itinerant photographers, white settlers, and colonial state institutions, this book explores the relationship between photography and history in colonial Southern Africa. Late nineteenth century Cape Colonial prison albums, police photographs from German Southwest Africa, African studio portraits, identity documents, travel permits and passports from the 1920s and 1930s, visual studies of whiteness and blackness authored by settler photographers, South African dompas photographs from the 1950s and 1960s, and aerial photography from the Eastern Cape in the mid-twentieth century are examined to highlight the ways in which photographic images cut across conventional institutional boundaries and complicate rigid distinctions between the private and the public, the political and the aesthetic, the colonial and the vernacular, or the subject and the object. Photography and History in Colonial Southern Africa argues that rather than understanding photographs as a means of preserving and recreating the past in the present, we can value them for how they evoke at once the need for and the limits of historical reconstruction. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of colonial history, photographic history, visual media, and African studies.

The Market Photo Workshop in South Africa and the 'Born Free' Generation

The Market Photo Workshop in South Africa and the 'Born Free' Generation
Author: Julie Bonzon
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2023-09-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000953254

This study presents the history of the Market Photo Workshop (MPW) in Johannesburg and works produced by its new generation of photography students. Founded in 1989 by internationally renowned documentary photographer David Goldblatt, the MPW has reflected upon South African political struggles and sociocultural changes since its creation. Its foundation parallels a moment in time when photography was considered a ‘truth telling’ genre and an essential source of documents deployed against the apartheid regime. This book reflects on the evolution of the MPW in the post-apartheid era and explores how its new generation of students engages the photographic tradition of this institution and the revolutionary times that accompanied its creation to question their present moment. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, photography, African studies, cultural studies and post-colonial studies.

What Is African Art?

What Is African Art?
Author: Peter Probst
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2022-12-06
Genre: Art
ISBN: 022679329X

A history of the evolving field of African art. This book examines the invention and development of African art as an art historical category. It starts with a simple question: What do we mean when we talk about African art? By confronting the historically shifting answers to this question, Peter Probst identifies “African art” as a conceptual vessel that manifests wider societal transformations. What Is African Art? covers three key stages in the field’s history. Starting with the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, the book first discusses the colonial formation of the field by focusing on the role of museums, collectors, and photography in disseminating visual cultures as relations of power. It then explores the remaking of the field at the dawn of African independence with the shift toward contemporary art and the rise of Black Atlantic studies in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it examines the post- and decolonial reconfiguration of the field driven by questions of representation, repair, and restitution.