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Black Women’s Bodies in the Portuguese Colonial Visual Archive (1900-1975)
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Resumo(s)
The pervasiveness of images of black women’s unclothed bodies in the Portuguese
colonial visual archive from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s—in photographic
postcards, propaganda leaflets, colonial exhibition ephemera or as illustrations
in newspapers—demonstrates that the gendered and racialized body of (unnamed)
women was a powerful trope of colonial hegemony.
The Portuguese colonial context, similar to other colonial contexts, reveals the banalization
of the practice of white men photographing black colonized women. Is resistance
or participation in the “event of photography” possible for these photographed
women? This article will discuss some of the issues and challenges of dealing with these
images through specific case studies: postcards of semi-naked African women between
the ethnographic and the erotic; images of women exhibited in colonial exhibitions;
private photographs of Portuguese soldiers next to African women; but also the counter
narratives to an hegemonic visuality.
Where are these images now? Where were they in the past? Who saw them and in
what contexts? How were they kept and classified? How were they reproduced? Their
endless potential for reproduction, circulation and intermediality points to the heterogeneous
nature of this legacy. How can we decolonize this visual archive? The question
of ethics, one which scholars, curators and archivists have been debating for the past
few decades, will also be addressed. Reproducing and exhibiting images of abuse and
exploitation might replicate what one seems to criticize. Are the university, the archive,
the museum, or the academic journal critical enough to counteract the risks of perpetuating
the violence?
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Photography Visual Culture Colonialism images of black women Portuguese
Contexto Educativo
Citação
Vicente, F. L. (2017). Black Women’s Bodies in the Portuguese Colonial Visual Archive (1900-1975), Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies 30/31, 16-67. Special Issue: Transnational Africas: Visual, Material and Sonic Cultures of Lusophone Africa