Paper short abstract:

My project concerns current societal identity debates, based on colonial photography. Contemporary visualisation of non-white Africans stems from the times of High Imperialism and colonial photography created racist visual patterns of peoples, resulting in sub-Saharan African stereotypes.

Paper long abstract:

Despite past and current social and political developments since Africa´s decolonisation, a visual world order narrative continues to be in place - one that continues to perpetuate a stereotypical image of Africa. A narrative that still has more in common with colonial times than with the 21st century by holding on to visualisations of violence, exploitation, disadvantage, infantilisation, and victimisation. The constant repetition of named visual patterns makes it harder to create and distribute an updated and non-Western identity based on collective memory from the agency of sub-Saharan Africa. The global north´s traditional viewing traditions are viewing traditions that need to be changed.

Long-term effects of colonial stereotyping and othering can be seen in ongoing attempts of identity-finding processes and the creation and maintenance of a collective memory. To change those identity and collective memory creation paths, the power centres with their origins being in the global north need readdressing. In a world of dominant social media outlets, images play a mightier role than before. This increases the importance of researching current movements and events that try to shake down the foundations of the historical visualisation of the sub-Saharan continent by its own constituents. This project is thus to be seen as part of a political and cultural counter movement to the global north. As such, my research aim is to equally analyse continuities as well as breaks within the establishment of a seeing pattern that puts African interests centre point within a twenty-first-century backdrop.