Photographs as Materials for African History: Some Methodological Considerations

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing interest in source materials on African history in African and European archives. The registration of documents and the methodology used in their interpretation have become a major issue of many scholars. While much progress has been made concerning the written materials, another category of archival documents has received little attention. These are pictorial records in general and historical photographs in particular. Considering that photography, beginning with the daguerrotype in 1839, virtually accompanied the exploration of the interior regions of Africa, the failure to exploit photographs systematically as source materials seems rather astonishing. One explanation for this neglect may lie in the fact that historians have traditionally been preoccupied with the written word. Despite this bias, historical photographs from Africa have been used ever more frequently as illustrations by art historians, historians, and anthropologists in recent years. The lack of systematic work with the images, however, often results in an impressionistic approach and serious errors.