Recovering Indigenous Agencies in Ethnographic Visual Archives: Activating Gregory Bateson, Reo Fortune and Margaret Mead's photographs

该项目将研究1930年代三位人类学家在巴布亚新几内亚实地考察所得的视觉档案。这些摄影档案目前尚未得到充分研究，但有可能为殖民摄影档案中的土著机构提供新的线索。考虑到它们是社会集合，我将特别关注历史和关系过程，以及这些档案的创作背景。通过不同的方法，我的目标是质疑摄影行为，其中拍摄对象被看到但沉默，从而恢复土著的声音和机构。通过这样做，这项研究将激活这些档案的潜力，重新连接过去和现在的土著机构，并为当前关于非殖民化档案的重要讨论带来新的观点。本项目拟研究保存在英国剑桥考古与人类学博物馆和美国华盛顿国会图书馆的巴布亚新几内亚东塞皮克省的摄影档案。这些丰富的材料是该地区殖民时期塞皮克人仪式生活和文化的独特见证。这些照片是由三位人类学家（Gregory Bateson， Reo Fortune和Margaret Mead）在1929年至1938年间前往塞皮克地区时拍摄的。他们的工作很重要，因为他们是第一批深入研究该地区的人类学家。虽然从这些田野调查中提取的人类学知识和理论已经得到了讨论，但视觉档案在很大程度上仍然被忽视。在这个项目中，我的目标是重新评估这些收藏本身作为物质遗产的价值，以及作为社会遭遇的生动痕迹。我将从摄影档案的创作过程和背景出发，提供新的视角。我将密切关注这一时期人类学家与殖民官员之间的不同层次的关系，以及塞皮克人之间的关系。通过跟踪这些照片从制作到后期的社会生活，我可以突出它们的相关性和重要性：首先是对当代塞皮克人来说，也是对当代殖民档案辩论的贡献。通过恢复土著视角和机构，该项目为档案中太平洋文化的殖民地代表的去分类、重新语境化和重新人性化提供了手段。通过这样做，我将研究当代殖民档案非殖民化的实际成果，并强调具体情况具体分析的重要性。我将根据Sepik的观点，为更好地管理这些档案提供理论和实践工具。这个项目借鉴了作为殖民档案记录的照片的非殖民化研究。相机作为一种创造档案对象的归档机器发挥了重要作用，因此，对它的研究与表征的理论讨论纠缠在一起，特别是在殖民背景下。对这些视觉档案的研究需要解决民族志学家的特定机构和他们在这些档案表现的起源处殖民地不对称权力关系的背景下遇到的人。然而，其目的是挑战照片的不对称解释潜力，其中摄影师是看不见的，但听到，而拍摄对象是可见的，但沉默。通过对书面和视觉档案的交叉阅读，有可能深入研究那些不打算被看到或听到的东西。关注照片中看不见的部分意味着要考虑图像框架内外不同主体之间的关系。这种原始的方法论方法为档案的视觉分析和物质性带来了不同的视角。

This project will study visual archives deriving from the fieldwork of three anthropologists in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s. These photographic archives are currently understudied but have the potential to shed new light on Indigenous agencies in colonial photographic archives. Considering them as social assemblages, I will particularly focus on historical and relational processes as well as on the contexts of creation of these archives. Through different methodologies, my aim is to interrogate the photographic act in which photographed subjects are seen but silenced, and thereby recover Indigenous voices and agencies. By doing so, the research will activate the potential of these archives to reconnect past and present Indigenous agencies and bring new perspectives into current and important discussions on decolonising archives.This project proposes to study photographic archives made in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea held in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge (UK) and the Library of Congress in Washington DC (USA). This rich material represents a unique testimony of Sepik ceremonial life and cultures during an important period of the colonisation of the region. The photographs were made by three anthropologists (Gregory Bateson, Reo Fortune and Margaret Mead) during their trips to the Sepik Region between 1929 and 1938. Their work is of importance as they were the first anthropologists to study the region in-depth. While the anthropological knowledge and theories extracted from these fieldworks have been discussed, the visual archives remain largely ignored. With this project, I aim to re-evaluate this collection as material heritage in its own right and as vivid traces of social encounters. I will provide new perspectives on photographic archives in light of the processes and contexts through which the photographs were created. I will pay close attention to the different layers of relations between anthropologists and colonial officials, but also Sepik people during this period. By following the social lives of these photographs from their production to their afterlives, I can highlight their relevance and significance: first and foremost for contemporary Sepik people but also as contributions to contemporary debates on colonial archives. Through the recovering of Indigenous perspectives and agencies, the project provides means for the de-classification, re-contextualization and re-humanization of colonial representations of Pacific cultures in archives. By doing so, I will examine practical outcomes of the contemporary decolonisation of colonial archives and highlight the importance of a case-by-case approach. I will provide theoretical and practical tools for better custodianship of these archives based on Sepik perspectives.This project draws on the decolonial study of photographs as colonial archival records. The camera played an important role as an archiving machine creating archival objects, the study of which is therefore entangled in theoretical discussion of representation, especially in colonial contexts. The study of these visual archives requires addressing the particular agencies of the ethnographers and the persons they encountered against the backdrop of the colonial asymmetrical power relations at the origin of these archival representations. However, the aim is to challenge the asymmetrical interpretative potential of a photograph in which the photographer is not seen but heard whereas the photographed subjects are visible but silent. Through a cross-reading of written and visual archives, it is possible to delve into what was not intended to be seen nor heard. Focusing on the unseen part of a photograph implies considering the relationships between the different agents inside and outside the frame of the image. This original methodological approach brings a different perspective on the visual analysis and materiality of the archives.