Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:37:12.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No Way Back – Reflections on the Future of the African Photographic Archive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

Jürg Schneider  and
Paul Weinberg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

The article examines from a global perspective the phenomenon of digital photographic archiving and questions its impact on African archives both on the continent and outside it. The authors deal with the multi-layered consequences of information technologies for African photographic archives, asking to what degree they have connected Africa to the world. They consider too how much access they have given Africans to materials that were previously either unknown to them, or beyond their reach. Finally, the article explores how much opportunity digitization offers to agents of African photographic archives, empowered by technological developments.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet article examine le phénomène de l’archivage photographique numérique à l’échelle mondiale et s’interroge sur son impact sur les archives africaines à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur du continent. Dans leur essence même, les auteurs traitent des conséquences multiples des technologies de l’information pour les archives photographiques africaines. Ils demandent dans quelle mesure ces technologies ont mis l’Afrique en relation avec le monde, et dans quelle mesure elles ont donné aux Africains l’accès à et une compréhension de matériaux inconnus auparavant ou inaccessibles. Enfin, l’article explore dans quelle mesure la numérisation offre des opportunités aux agents travaillant des archives photographiques africaines entrainés et encouragés à utiliser ces nouvelles technologies.

Type
Archives and the Digital Turn
Information
History in Africa , Volume 47 , June 2020 , pp. 167 - 194
Copyright
© African Studies Association, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bachi, Valentina, Fresa, Antonella, Pierotti, Claudia and Prandoni, Claudio, “The Digitization Age: Mass Culture is Quality Culture. Challenges for Cultural Heritage and Society,” in: Ioannides, Marinos, Magnenat-Thalmann, Nadia, Fink, Eleanor, Žarnić, Roko and Yen, Alex Yianing (eds.), Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection [EuroMed 2014 Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 8740] (Springer: Cham).Google Scholar
Bajorek, Jennifer, “Decolonizing the Archive. The View from West Africa,” Aperture 210 (2013), 66–69.Google Scholar
Belting, Hans, Bild-Anthropologie (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2001).10.30965/9783846752210CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blouin, Francis X., and Rosenberg, William G. (eds.), Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory. Essays from the Sawyer Seminar (Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Buckley, Liam, “Objects of Love and Decay: Colonial Photographs in a Postcolonial Archive,” Cultural Anthropology 20–2 (2005), 249–270.10.1525/can.2005.20.2.249CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway, Paul, and Punzalan, Ricardo, “Fields of Vision: Toward a New Theory of Visual Literacy for Digitized Archival Photographs,” Archivaria 71 (2011), 63–97.Google Scholar
Culler, Jonathan, Framing the Sign. Criticism and its Institutions (Norman/London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988).Google Scholar
de Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Edwards, Elizabeth, “Thinking Materially/Thinking Relationally,” in: Albrecht, Michael, Arlt, Veit, Müller, Barbara and Schneider, Jürg (eds.), Getting Pictures Right. Context and Interpretation (Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2004), 11–24.Google Scholar
Edwards, Elizabeth, and Hart, Janice (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories. On the Materiality of Images (London/New York: Routledge, 2004).10.4324/9780203506493CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enwezor, Okwui, Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography (Göttingen: Steidl, 2006).Google Scholar
Enwezor, Okwui, Archive Fever. Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art (New York/Göttingen: International Center of Photography/Steidl, 2008).Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2004).Google Scholar
Godby, Michael, “Double-Take: Reflections on Two Collections of South African Double Exposure,” (unpublished catalogue essays written for The Other Camera Exhibition, 2014) in: Harrell, Stephanie (ed.), The Other Camera (Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, 2014), 17–18.Google Scholar
Gombrich, Ernst H., The Sense of Order. A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1979).Google Scholar
Hamilton, Carolyn, “Forged and Continually Refashioned in the Crucible of Ongoing Social and Political Life: Archives and Custodial Practices as Subjects of Enquiry,” South African Historical Journal 65–1 (2013), 1–2210.1080/02582473.2013.763400CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Carolyn, et al. (eds.), Refiguring the Archive (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002).10.1007/978-94-010-0570-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Carolyn, Harris, Verne and Hatang, Sello, “Fashioning Legacy in South Africa: Power, Pasts, and the Promotion of Social Cohesion,” in: Kearns, Peter, Kling, Sofia and Wistman, Christina (eds.), Heritage, Regional Development and Social Cohesion (Östersund: Jamtli Förlag/Jamtli Publishing House, 2011), 146–159.Google Scholar
Haney, Erin, Photography and Africa (London: Reaktion Books, 2010).Google Scholar
Haney, Erin, and Bajorek, Jennifer, “Vital Signs: Twenty-First Century Institutions for Photography in Africa,” in: Morton, Christopher and Newbury, Darren (eds.), The African Photographic Archive. Research and Curatorial Strategies (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 215–229.Google Scholar
Haney, Erin, and Schneider, Jürg, “Beyond the ‘African’ Archive Paradigm,” Visual Anthropology 27–4 (2014), 307–315.10.1080/08949468.2014.914845CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herwitz, Daniel, “Heritage and Legacy in the South African State and University,” in: Peterson, Derek R., Gavua, Kodzo and Rassool, Ciraj (eds.), The Politics of Heritage in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 37–49.10.1017/CBO9781316151181.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holschbach, Susanne, “Continuities and Differences between Photographic and Post-Photographic,” (2004), 14–15, http://mkn.zkm.de/themes/photo_byte/photographic_post-photographic/15/, accessed January 2020.Google Scholar
Incardona, Laura, and Serani, Laura, Malik Sidibé: La Vie en Rose (Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana, 2010).Google Scholar
Keller, Candace M., “Framed and Hidden Histories. West African Photography from Local to Global Contexts,” African Arts 47–4 (2015), 36–47.10.1162/AFAR_a_00181CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopytoff, Igor, “The Cultural Biography of Things. Commoditization as Process,” in: Appadurai, Arjun (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 64–91.10.1017/CBO9780511819582.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowry, James, “Introduction. Displaced Archives,” in: Lowry, James (ed.), Displaced Archives (London/New York: Routledge, 2017), 1–11.10.4324/9781315577609CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lunenfeld, Peter, Snap to Grid. A User’s Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures (Cambridge MA/London: MIT Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsh, Diana E., Punzalan, Ricardo L. and Leopold, Robert, “Studying the Impact of Digitized Ethnographic Collections: Implications for Practitioners,” Practicing Anthropology 37–3 (2015), 26–31.10.17730/0888-4552-37.3.26CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris-Reich, Amos, Race and Photography. Racial Photography as Scientific Evidence, 1876–1980 (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2016).10.7208/chicago/9780226320915.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Christopher, and Edwards, Elizabeth, “Introduction,” in: Morton, Christopher and Edwards, Elizabeth (eds.), Photography, Anthropology and History. Expanding the Frame (Farnham, Surrey/Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2009), 1–25.Google Scholar
Morton, Christopher, and Newbury, Darren (eds.), The African Photographic Archive. Research and Curatorial Strategies (London/New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2015).Google Scholar
Opp, James. “The Colonial Legacies of the Digital Archive: The Arnold Lupson Photographic Collection,” Archivaria 65–1 (2008), 3–19.Google Scholar
Peffer, John, “Introduction. The Study of Photographic Portraiture in Africa,” in: Peffer, John and Cameron, Elisabeth L. (eds.), Portraiture and Photography in Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 1–32.Google Scholar
Pfenniger, Kathryn, “Bildarchiv Digital,” Rundbrief Fotografie, Sonderheft 7 (2001), 1–84.Google Scholar
Steyerl, Hito, “In Defense of the Poor Image,” Journal #10 (2009), http://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/, accessed January 2020.Google Scholar
Sassoon, Joanna, “Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” in: Edwards, Elisabeth and Hart, Janice (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories. On the Materiality of Images (London/New York Routledge, 2004), 186–202.Google Scholar
Schneider, Jürg, “Looking into the Past and Present: The Origins of Photography in Africa,” in: Sheehan, Tanya and Zervigón, Andrés (eds.), Photography and its Origins (New York/London: Routledge, 2015), 171–182.Google Scholar
Schneider, Jürg, “Views of Continuity and Change: the Press Photo Archives in Buea, Cameroon,” Visual Studies 33–1 (2018), 28–40.10.1080/1472586X.2018.1426224CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, Paul, “Introduction. Images from the Inside,” in: Harrell, Stephanie (ed.), The Other Camera (Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, 2014), 9–16.Google Scholar
Witcomb, Andrea, “The Materiality of Virtual Technologies: A New Approach to Thinking about the Impact of Multimedia in Museums,” in: Cameron, Fiona and Kenderdine, Sarah (eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A Critical Discourse (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2007), 35–48.10.7551/mitpress/9780262033534.003.0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar