In this well-researched, beautifully produced volume, author and curator Christraud M. Geary shows that postcards are much more than mere souvenirs, examining their production, circulation, and interpretations to reveal the ways in which these complex objects tell stories of power, history, and memory during Africa’s colonial era. The author demonstrates her deep knowledge of, and long-time devotion to, such objects; as she notes, this book acts as a follow-up to her Delivering Views: Distant Cultures in Early Postcards (1998), published two decades ago. The present work is organized thematically with a prologue, five body chapters, and a brief epilogue. Given this format, the author covers a wide geographic area in this collection, noting that some regions are underrepresented given the nature of the collection mined for this work (i.e., the Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Temporally, the author explores the “golden age” of postcards, ranging primarily from the 1890s–1920s. Such a timeline offers a glimpse into the throes of European colonialism in Africa, as these images, while static, nevertheless exhibit remarkable tales of dynamic social interaction, change, exchange, and mobility. While the reproduced images certainly testify to the objectification, commodification, consumption, and control of Africa and Africans under the gaze of colonial rule, Geary is careful to also address Africans’ agency, including their manipulation of photographic technology and appropriation of European culture for their own needs, desires, and production of counter-narratives.
The first chapter offers a brief historical overview of the production of African postcards, noting how they contributed to constructing an “image world” of tropes that play into colonial fantasies of the continent. A broad swath of stereotypical images ranging from colonial conquest, bustling markets, European expeditions, and half-naked “natives” to black laborers, imperial ceremony, trophy hunts, and “traditional” African customs are juxtaposed with depictions of Africans appropriating European culture, including the technology and business of photography itself. Offering insightful biographies of each photographer, the author illustrates the various motivations for producing such objects. While some photographers viewed their work as a chance to ironically use a modern invention to preserve “dying cultures” threatened by modernity and colonialism, others merely wished to contribute to the general awareness of Africa and its people, and yet others were spurred by imperialist desires for control. No matter their motives or identities as European, African, Creole, or Indian, the author argues that all shared a fascination with the medium and an impetus to master its form to create opportunities for themselves as entrepreneurs in a new age. In short, while some outsiders sought the mastery of form along with the subjugation of Africans, locals used photography to tell their own stories by mastering a foreign technology to illustrate the atrocities of colonial rule while asserting their own authority.
In the subsequent section, “Colonial Worlds,” Geary continues her argument for the dialectical agency of Africans and outsiders as they each used photography to relay various and competing messages. For European imperialists and missionaries, postcard images of Africa served as evidence of “progress,” empire building, “order,” “civilizing,” and “modernizing” as they documented the development of railways, roads, and colonial architecture as well as captured the cultural education that was being thrust onto Africans in the name of Christianity. As European explorers navigated the difficult terrain of the continent’s hinterlands, they documented their triumph over nature with pastoral scenes of Africa’s interior. Ironically, however, as Europeans sought to glorify their subjugation of “native” populations, depictions of such cruelty and brutality, particularly in Congo, served to turn European public opinion against imperialist leaders such as King Leopold. African photographers, on the other hand, often deliberately documented the atrocities of colonial rule, seeking to end the violence of forced labor and cultural erasure.
The following chapter examines the ways in which photography furthered colonial notions of classification, looking specifically at the reification of typologies such as race, “tribe,” and gender. The Maasai, for example, with their long history of European fascination, became etched in the foreign imagination as warriors and “savages” through staged postcard photos. The exotic and erotic collude in pictures of bare-breasted “native” women to objectify and exploit female African bodies through the oversexualized orientalist gaze of the camera lens. And ethnological photos position African bodies as specimens of scientific inquiry. However, the author reminds us that Africans, despite the exploitative nature of many of these pictures, also took advantage of photography by self-fashioning their own portraits to express their humanity and social status as elites in some cases, staring back at the camera lens in counter-gazes to colonial hegemony.
Continuing this focus on portraiture, the next chapter primarily examines postcards depicting African leaders. Again, the author emphasizes the polysemous nature of photography, noting that while postcards of deposed African leaders symbolized colonial conquest, for Africans such images may represent resistance and survival in the face of colonial savagery and remain important documentations of local legacies. Photos of African appropriations of European culture (e.g., local chiefs wearing suits and crowns) particularly demonstrate agency and a mastery of foreignness while attesting to the collaboration that was necessary between African and European elites to consolidate control of the continent. Additionally, the author notes that Africans often played into tourists’ stereotyped expectations, for instance, changing out of “modern” clothes into “traditional” attire to profit from European curiosity.
The last main chapter examines postcards of rituals, dances, and masquerades, which were highly prized by collectors because such scenes not only reinforced some of the most iconic imagery of Africa, but were somewhat rare due to the clandestine nature of many of these traditions. Photographers and merchants employed tropes of “witchdoctors,” “fetishes,” and “secret societies,” to entice European consumers, while Africans used such images to memorialize their ancestors or cement their own status as powerful healers and leaders.
From safaris and cultural tourism to print and new media, it is all too evident that the colonial “image world” of Africa casts long shadows, unfortunately, remaining a potent part of the making and performance of Africa today; by interrogating such tropes and their histories as well as acknowledging the agency of Africans to tell their own stories, this volume offers a timely critique of damaging hegemonic narratives of the continent that continue to plague its people and culture. In all, by examining the production, distribution, and interpretation of African postcards of this period, this book will be a valuable read for those seeking to further understand the construction of this image world as well as the complicated relationships between photographic technology, Europeans, Africans, and Indians during the colonial era.
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[Review length: 1101 words • Review posted on April 19, 2019]