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Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines photographs of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission that was one of the first missions to be based in the northeastern region of India (1842-1967). The paper will analyse the construction of ‘native’ subjects in missionary photographs and the uses those photographs served.

Contribution long abstract:

Colonial establishments used photography as a tool for knowledge production about colonised lands and peoples. All colonial photography did not however, produce singular or homogenous knowledge. Historicising the aims, methods and uses of various colonial photographic practices facilitates in developing a more nuanced understanding of colonial visualities and the knowledge they uphold. Based on this understanding, this paper examines the photographs of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission that was one of the first missions to be based in the northeastern region of India (1842-1967). The paper will analyse the construction of ‘native’ subjects in missionary photographs and the uses those photographs served.

The paper commences with a brief overview of the administrative/ethnographic modality deployed by photographers and officials representative of the British Colonial State who documented the tribes of northeastern India. The administrative/ethnographic modality took the form of type and landscape photography. In contrast to this mode are the more expository missionary photographs whose principle focus was on the growth of missionary activities including conversion, education and colonial medicine in the region. As missionaries had a more sustained presence in the region, their photographs depict tribal societies undergoing deep socio-economic change that the missionaries publicised to congregations in Wales, UK. The paper builds on scholarship that recognises missionary media as an early form of advertising, publicising mission activities in India to secure financial support for an enterprise towards which the Colonial State maintained an ambiguous posture.

The paper concludes with a summary of the distinguishing features of missionary photography.