Counter Memories: Seeing Empire through the National Trust, c. 1895 - c. 2020

本研究项目旨在通过研究在一个乡村别墅举行的摄影收藏，更好地了解国家信托财产的殖民遗产。一个具体的属性尚未指定，但对于任何房子，相同的基本方法将适用。该项目旨在通过“视觉考古学”进一步理解英国“帝国凝视”的概念，展示这种形式的物质文化如何创造和加强欧洲对殖民他者的尊重。英国人收集的殖民地人民和地方的个人图像将被调查，而不是为殖民地政府目的而创建的官方或正式摄影集。通过关注区域背景而非大都市，该项目建立在现有研究的基础上，通过询问殖民地的愿景在伦敦之外可能会有怎样的变化。该项目旨在评估这些图像是如何被那些住在房子里的人收集、存储和使用的，以及这些图像的收集可能对被殖民者的感知产生了什么影响，以及对被殖民者的感知可能对观众产生了什么影响。摄影与现代欧洲殖民主义有关，因为它是通过后启蒙时代的理想来构建和理解的，这些理想赋予了经验，特别是视觉。照片被认为是其他地方和时间的直接窗口，这与这项研究特别相关，因为它表明那些观看它们的人会认为自己超越了大都市和殖民地（Ryan，1997）。诸如“形象非洲”之类的术语在指与现实相反的感知殖民地时是有用的（朗道和卡斯平，2002年）。该项目是跨学科的，希克斯教授和凯法拉斯博士的监督提供了考古学和人类学方法的专业知识，我自己的历史背景融合了这些已经界限模糊的学科，特别是在帝国和材料研究中（Gosden，1999; Hicks and Beaudry，2010）。作为与英国国家信托基金会的合作项目，该项目的研究结果将受益于信托基金会的专业知识，并有助于了解其藏品，希望公众游客也能更多地了解其财产的殖民历史。研究的照片将根据其内容和重要性进行评估，由爱德华兹的概念，照片作为一个物理对象（爱德华兹和哈特，2004年）。照片的创作和接受对这个项目同样重要，因为它们的物理性和被观看的背景从根本上塑造了它们告诉观众的主题。历史学家和考古学家对感官的深入了解可能对进一步理解这一点很有价值，因为那些被展示照片的人只能看到黑色和白色的静止图像，而无法获得他们所了解的地方的声音和气味。在他们能够接触到其他人工制品的地方，如食物、织物或乐器，这些都是经过高度精心挑选的奢侈品，仍然是殖民地本身有限的机会。考虑照片被看到和消费的背景对于准确理解它们的含义非常重要。该项目还将采取交叉的方法，考虑种族、性别和阶级如何影响殖民者和被殖民者对自己和彼此的形象。在利用殖民者创造和拥有的资源基础的同时，将尽一切努力从图像中提取殖民者的声音。这项研究提供了一个机会，以解决殖民主义在创造财富的许多国家的房子，并有助于更知情的了解其相关性的家庭的社会生活的作用。

This research project seeks to better understand the colonial heritage of national trust properties through the study of a photographic collection held at a country house. A specific property is yet to be specified, but for any house the same fundamental approaches would apply. The project aims to further conceptions of the British "imperial gaze" through a "visual archaeology" which will demonstrate how this form of material culture created and reinforced European imaginings of the colonial Other. The personal images of colonised peoples and places collected by Britons will be investigated, rather than official or formal photographic collections created for government purposes in the colonies. By focusing on a regional context rather than the metropole, the project builds on existing research by asking how visions of the colonies may have varied outside of London. The project seeks to assess how these images were collected, stored and used by those who lived in the house, and what effects the collection may have had on perceptions of the colonised, and how perceiving the colonised may have affected viewers. Photography is associated with modern European colonialism as it was constructed and understood through post-Enlightenment ideals which priviledged the empirical, particularly that which was visual. Photos were understood to be direct windows to other places and times, which is particularly relevant to this study as it suggests that those viewing them would have believed themselves to be transcending metropole and colony (Ryan, 1997). Terms such as "image-Africa" are useful to refer to the perceived colony as opposed to the reality (Landau and Kaspin, 2002).The project is interdisciplinary, with Professor Hicks' and Doctor Kefalas' supervision providing expertise in archaeological and anthropological methods and my own background in history merging these disciplines which already have blurred boundaries, particularly within imperial and material studies (Gosden, 1999; Hicks and Beaudry, 2010). As a collaboration with the National Trust, this project's findings will both benefit from the expertise within the Trust and contribute to understanding of its collections, with the hope that public visitors can be given greater access to the colonial histories of its properties too.The photos studied will be assessed in terms of their materiality as much as for their contents, informed by Edwards' conception of the photograph as a physical object (Edwards and Hart, 2004). Both the creation and reception of the photographs will be equally important to this project, as both their physicality and the context in which they were viewed fundamentally shaped what they told viewers about their subjects. Insights from historians and archaeologists of the senses may be valuable in further understanding this, as those who were being shown the photographs were only seeing black and white, still images, without the access to the sounds and smells of the places they were learning about. Where they had access to other artefacts, such as foods, fabrics or musical instruments, these were highly curated, luxurious commodities and still provided limited access to the colonies thenselves. Consideration of the contexts in which the photographs were being seen and consumed will be important in gaining an accurate understanding of their meanings. This project will also take an intersectional approach, considering the ways in which, race, gender and class affected both the colonisers and the colonised's images of themselves and each other. Whilst drawing on a source-base which was created and owned by the coloniser, every effort will be made throughout to draw out the voice of the colonised from the images. This research provides an opportunity to address the role of colonialism in creating the wealth attached to many country houses, and to contribute to a more informed understanding of its relevance to the social lives of the families.