On Ethnography and Ethnographic Photos
My blog includes many historical images of people from different communities, particularly throughout Southwest Asia and North Africa. While these photos are valuable as insight into the past, that is limited and complicated by the Orientalist and racist context in which they were produced.
Here are some articles I recommend about this history:
Photography and the Ethnographic Method by Sasanka Perera (this one is paywalled so message me for a PDF if you want to read it)
The history of transdisciplinary race classification: methods, politics, and institutions, 1840s-1940s by Richard McMahon
Orientalism and the Politics of Photographic Representation by Ali Behdad
Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century Photography by Michelle Woodward
Here are some important excerpts from the articles:
"Although the word Orientalist at one time referred to a scholar of the “Orient,” it is now used almost exclusively to refer to a particular system of representation that creates a false distinction between a supposedly tradition-bound “Orient” and a modernizing “West.” Orientalist photography depicts the Middle East as exotic, erotic, and mysterious; constrained by religious beliefs; and as unable or unwilling to progress and change without outside, specifically European, interference. Orientalist photography recycles familiar stereotypes and clichés in order to create a fictional world that matches the preconceived notions of the audience and assures them of their superiority." - Woodward
"With the expansion of colonialism, the curiosity to “know” more about the colonized people and their material culture also simultaneously expanded in imperial centers. The evolution of this taste for exotic visual objects coincided to a certain extent with the early development of anthropology itself. It is in this overall scheme of things that Sir Walter Baldwin Spence once noted with regard to film in early 20th century, that his intention was to show the world “the real native” (quoted in MacDougal, 1997, p. 276). Both film and photography offered what seemed to be an irrefutable corpus of “facts” whose authority and authenticity were established within the realms of knowledge available at the time." - Perera
"It is important to note that Orientalist clichés and tropes were used by both Western and local photographers alike. Regardless of the photographer’s national origin or identity, the photography they produced was influenced by the tastes of their intended audience or clientele, among other factors. Whether they were local or foreign, photographers were susceptible to the pressures of the market and most produced stock Orientalist fare for tourists, as well as other types of work." - Woodward
"The historical record shows that early anthropologists had no faith in “native” people’s ability to offer what they considered factual information pertaining to their social systems and cultural domains. This was considered to be the result of these peoples’ civilizational backwardness. As such, only something tangibly “scientific” could overcome this situation, which stood in the way of advancing “science.” Science in this case was anthropology." - Perera
"The nineteenth century’s passion for cataloging, collecting, and explaining the world in scientific, empirical terms manifested in the formation of new disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, new theories like Darwin’s evolution, as well as in the ways society used the new technology of photography. The photograph’s ability to record more life-like detail than any other process led to its use as a tool for accumulating visual surveys of urban space, historical monuments, colonial possessions, and people categorized as ethnic or occupational “types.” The Middle East was soon subject to these visual surveys of landscape, architecture, and people. An early example is the work of Egyptian engineer Muhammad Sadiq Bey (1832-1902) who was the first to photograph Mecca and Medina in 1861 during the course of a cartographic expedition." - Woodward
"The problem, however, was that the observational method quite simplistically assumed a photograph to be an “objective fact” emerging as a direct result of scientific research. But in contemporary circumstances, most scholars would agree that ethnographic research is the outcome of a “relationship and negotiations between the researcher and informants rather than of the former’s objective observation of the latter” (Pink, 2003, p. 182). In this transformed intellectual equation, photographs—like all other social facts—cannot be thought of as objective scientific facts. Instead, it is necessary for them to be located in the larger and changing contexts of discourse and be interpreted both ethnographically and theoretically in these contexts." - Perera
"Commercial photography studios produced most of the images labeled now as Orientalist. They were often run by permanent residents in the Ottoman Empire who established long-lasting local studios, unlike those photographers who traveled in the Middle East for a short period and then returned to Europe with their negatives. The Frenchman Félix Bonfils, for example, established a family-run studio after moving to Beirut in 1867. His subjects included all the usual themes from Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece: monuments, landscapes (often titled with Biblical references), and people classified according to type (figure 7). Many studios photographed people as recognizable types posed and costumed as if engaged in traditional and timeless activities, such as brewing coffee, selling produce, praying, or playing musical instruments. Certain Bonfils studio shots of types have been shown to be falsely labeled, with the same model posing as a rabbi in one photo and a cotton carder in another. Scholars have found that the use of models was a common practice among studios." - Woodward
