Photography, capitalism and empire: A case study of the Handbook of Fiji

Abstract

Photographically illustrated handbooks became popular in the 1890s and supplemented the official Annual Reports and Blue Books. Handbooks were both an instrument of propaganda and a prospectus for potential investors and settlers and served a documentary purpose by providing a glimpse of a colony’s natural resources, economy, European life and Indigenous peoples. The handbook phenomenon, globally, has been largely overlooked by historians, despite adding to the complex archive generated by mid-century colonies. This article analyses the way photographs operated in the handbooks, particularly the inclusions and omissions in the many editions and reprints in the 1924–43 period, to provide insights into the ways a British colony – Fiji – was being remade and reshaped by capitalism and colonialism.