Light on Darkness? African missionary photography in the nineteenth and early twentieth century

黑暗中的光明？

• 批准号: AH/E504361/1
• 负责人: Jack Thompson
• 金额: $ 3.44万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE504361%2F1
• 关键词: Light; Darkness; African; missionary; photography

The early 1840s saw the export to Africa both of the newly developed art of photography, and of perhaps the most famous missionary of the nineteenth century, David Livingstone. Throughout the next century missionary photography played a large part in creating for Western public images of Africa, and of the Christian missionary task there. To begin with photographic images were used indirectly - as the source for illustrative lithographs in both missionary periodicals and books, and, more widely in the popular press. With the development of the half-tone printing process in the 1880s photographs began to be used directly in all the above media. In addition, the widespread use of magic lantern slides as educational and propaganda tools spread images of Africa very widely throughout the British public. By and large, though, this public accepted these images at their face value. There was a general assumption that 'the camera does not lie.' Together with the captions which accompanied such photographs a whole range of stereotypes of what Africa and Africans were like, and the transformations which Christian missions brought, was propagated and instilled into the British psyche. The idea that missionary photographs might represent a partial and perhaps very unbalanced view of the African reality was hardly considered - least of all in the churches and church halls up and down the country on which the missionary effort relied for financial and spiritual support. Thus the image (in this case quite literally) of Africa, the African and the missionary which emerged was one dictated almost entirely by the missionaries themselves, with very little acknowledged African input. In the general field of African history, and increasingly also in the more focussed field of the history of African Christianity, the Euro-centric nature of much missionary historiography of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has come to be accepted widely. Isolated African voices of protest have existed throughout most of this period. From the 1960s onwards they (and those of western historians) have become increasingly heard as they draw attention to the prejudices and limitations of nineteenth century mission historiography. Yet in the more specific field of African missionary photography there has been extremely little study or critique. Among the general public attitudes to historical photographs are often not very different to those of a century ago; and in the field of African mission historiography very little detailed attention has been given to interpreting such photographs. This study is one attempt to redress this imbalance. It will examine a large cross-section of photographs taken by missionaries (mostly British) in Africa in the second half of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries. Taken together with the captions and texts which often accompanied such photographs when they were published, the study will attempt to show how such photographs helped to establish particular stereotypes of Africa and Africans, which have largely persisted into the modern period.

19世纪40年代初，新发展的摄影艺术和世纪最著名的传教士大卫·利文斯通（David Livingstone）都向非洲出口。在接下来的整个世纪，传教摄影在为西方公众塑造非洲形象以及基督教在那里的传教任务方面发挥了很大作用。从开始，摄影图像被间接地使用--作为传教士期刊和书籍中说明性石版画的来源，更广泛地用于大众媒体。随着19世纪80年代半色调印刷工艺的发展，照片开始直接用于所有上述媒体。此外，魔术幻灯片作为教育和宣传工具的广泛使用，使非洲的形象在英国公众中广泛传播。不过，总的来说，公众接受了这些形象的表面价值。有一个普遍的假设，“相机不会说谎。“伴随着这些照片的标题，一系列关于非洲和非洲人的刻板印象，以及基督教传教所带来的转变，被传播并灌输到英国人的心灵中。传教士的照片可能代表了对非洲现实的片面和非常不平衡的看法，这种想法几乎没有被考虑过--尤其是在传教士赖以获得财政和精神支持的全国各地的教堂和教堂霍尔斯里。因此，非洲、非洲人和传教士的形象（在这种情况下是字面上的）几乎完全是由传教士自己决定的，很少有公认的非洲投入。在非洲历史的一般领域，以及越来越多的非洲基督教历史的重点领域，19世纪和20世纪初许多传教士史学的欧洲中心性质已经被广泛接受。在此期间的大部分时间里，非洲都存在孤立的抗议声音。从20世纪60年代起，他们（以及西方历史学家）越来越多地听到他们提请注意十九世纪使命史学的偏见和局限性。然而，在非洲传教士摄影这一更具体的领域，却鲜有研究或评论。一般公众对历史照片的态度往往与世纪前的态度没有太大的不同;在非洲使命史学领域，很少有人详细关注如何解释这些照片。这项研究就是试图纠正这种不平衡。它将研究19世纪下半叶和20世纪初在非洲的传教士（主要是英国人）拍摄的大量照片。研究报告将结合这些照片出版时往往附带的说明和文字，试图说明这些照片如何有助于建立对非洲和非洲人的特定定型观念，这些观念在很大程度上一直持续到现代。