Portraiture and Photography in Africa

Beautifully illustrated, Portrait Photography in Africa offers new interpretations of the cultural and historical roles of photography in Africa. Twelve leading scholars look at early photographs, important photographers' studios, the uses of portraiture in the 19th century, and the current passion for portraits in Africa. They review a variety of topics, including what defines a common culture of photography, the social and political implications of changing technologies for portraiture, and the lasting effects of culture on the idea of the person depicted in the photographic image.

Foreword Raoul Birnbaum
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Study of Photographic Portraiture in Africa John Peffer

Part 1. Exchange
1. Portrait Photography: A Visual Currency in the Atlantic Visualscape Jürg Schneider
2. Lutterodt Family Studios and the Changing Face of Early Portrait Photographs from the Gold Coast Erin Haney
3. Yoruba Studio Photographers in Francophone West Africa Érika Nimis
4. The Fieldworker and the Portrait: The Social Relations of Photography Elisabeth L. Cameron

Part 2. Social Lives
5. "A Photograph Steals the Soul": The History of an Idea Z. S. Strother
6. The Past in the Present: Photographic Portraiture and the Evocation of Multiple Histories in the Bamum Kingdom of Cameroon Christraud M. Geary
7. Mombasa on Display: Photography and the Formation of an Urban Public, from the 1940s Onward Isolde Brielmaier
8. Portrait Photography in a Postcolonial Age: How Beauty Tells the Truth Liam Buckley

Part 3. Traditions
9. Likeness or Not: Musings on Portraiture in Canonical African Art and Its Implications for African Portrait Photography Jean Borgatti
10. k-graphy: w Portraits Rowland Abdn
11. Visual Griots: Identity, Aesthetics, and the Social Roles of Portrait Photographers in Mali Candace M. Keller
12. The Intermediality of Portraiture in Northern Côte d'Ivoire Till Förster

Contributors
Index