Photography's Other Histories

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, and Christopher Wright.