PHOTOGRAPHY AND DOMINATION: TOWARDS A VISUAL HISTORY OF GERMAN COLONIALISM (1884-1918)

Abstract

The German Colonial Society occupied the front role in the project of photographical representation of the German colonization in Africa between 1884 and 1918. Photography was an important instrument for colonization not only for the register of the European activities in the colonies, but also because it was a privileged support for the elaboration of an imaginary about the colonization. From the digital archive of the German Colonial Society, in this paper we aim to understand the way in which the colonial gaze of this institution focalized the colonial landscape, be it the geographical space, be it the space with the interventions of the colonizers. Furthermore, it is also our intention to comprehend how such photographs were responsible for building a narrative about the colonization of the African space by German colonizers.