Issues with informed consent in photography and photographic archives often arise with ethnographic images. Early photographers were not concerned with informed consent, and sometimes documented people in different lands and cultures as if they were a feature of the landscape or a scientific specimen. “Anthropological, sociological, and psychiatric disciplines create intentional pictorial studies. These studies may feature many private moments and sacred ceremonies, sacred sites, sacred objects, or traditional knowledge for which privacy and cultural concerns can be significant” (Ritzenthaler et al. 2010: 329). For my final blog post I wanted to look at the idea of repatriating images, but through my research I found that there was much more to it than simple repatriation of art or of artifacts, and it was not as common a form of repatriation. More often, sensitive photographs are often used in photo-elicitation cases, where social scientists use photographs within ethnographic interviews to elicit responses and learn more information about the photographs and the culture they are studying. This post will look at the use of photo-elicitation to broaden our understanding of a culture through the use of photography and visual literacy.
Ritzenthaler (2010) recommends working with the groups associated with the images to identify concerns and honor them to the fullest extent allowed under the law and the repositories policies. Working with these groups closely links to photo-elicitation projects, as well as visual repatriation projects. It is very likely that historical photographs of Native Americans and other indigenous communities do not have informed consent associated with them. Visual repatriation and photo-elicitation serve as ways for repositories to work with source communities to enrich collections through knowledge sharing and through the building of valuable relationships between researchers/institutions and indigenous communities. It also allows them to alert source communities to the existence of these photographs, and work to involve them in discussions about these images.
Photo-elicitation is the use of photographs in an ethnographic interview to further conversation, and better understand the culture being depicted in the image. This is effective due to the nature of photographs, “photographs appear to capture the impossible: a person gone; an event past. That extraordinary sense of seeming to retrieve something that has disappeared belongs alone to the photograph, and it leads to deep and interesting talk” (Harper 2002: 23). Similarly, the term “visual repatriation” is used to denote not necessarily the return of the photographs themselves, but instead elements of history, memory, and identity that are associated with the images. “Many indigenous people were forcibly removed from their own histories through forms of colonization… a connection to historical photographs that contain traces of a difficult past can be empowering” (Dobbin 2013: 129). Some indigenous groups are using photographs taken during colonization as a way of reclaiming their own history, even when informed consent was not part of the photographic process. Elizabeth Edwards describes visual repatriation as the “conscious shifting of photographs from a ‘public,’ ‘outsider’ to ‘private’ and ‘appropriate’ spaces. Photographs that were created as colonial documents, and which became ‘ethnographic’ records through their entanglements within specific institutional structures, become family history, clan history or community history” (2003: 85). The emphasis in this type of repatriation is on the rewriting of the official history of a culture, and looking beyond the history that was written through colonization.
One of the main articles I looked at on this topic was by Kristen Dobbin. The article, “Exposing Yourself a Second Time: Visual Repatriation in Scandinavian Sápmi”, looked at four different cases in which Sami individuals use photographs drawn from anthropological collections to bring forth counternarratives to “official” history. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, “were represented in anthropological photographs that were thought to record scientific data about their ‘race.’ These types of photographs represent a significant part of the visual history of the Sami in Norway, Sweden, and Finland” (Dobbin 2013: 128). I was already familiar with the Sami culture from my undergraduate work, but Dobbin provides a good, succinct, rundown of the position of the Sami in Scandinavian society throughout history for those who are unfamiliar:
For centuries, the Sami spoke a language distinct from their Scandinavian neighbors, possessed unique cultural traditions, and practiced a different religion and livelihood. There is a long history of cooperative contact and trade between the Sami and their Scandinavian neighbors, but as the Scandinavian states began to develop fishing, agriculture, and mining industries from the 16th century onward, settlers were encouraged to move north. Over time, antagonisms developed as the Sami and the Scandinavian settlers increasingly came into contact, competing for resources and attempting to negotiate their differences (2013:131) .
Photography facilitated the shift in Sami “otherness” from the realm of the cultural to that of the physical. Similar to projects undertaken by anthropologists worldwide, anthropomorphic photography allowed for the development of the idea that different races could be classified, studied, and measured based on physical characteristics.
One set of these photos, taken in 1884 by Prince Roland Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon, are no longer under copyright, and have been made available digitally by the Musée de L’Homme in Paris. The release of these images makes it possible for the Sami to reclaim them in a sense,
In Sápmi, it is acknowledged that historical photographs are important documents that link the past and present, attesting to both private family histories and broader Sami histories. Given the nomadic lifestyle of many Sami, owning and transporting bulky camera equipment was unrealistic; and in Sápmi, many do not possess private family photographs of their ancestors. Often those interested in seeing images of their family or community are not bothered by the fact that an outsider may have taken the photograph (Dobbin 2013: 132).
The Bonaparte collection has circulated widely among the Sami, and despite the images having been taken as a way for anthropologists to separate the Sami from the Scandinavian population, they has proven to be an invaluable way for the Sami to connect with their history. In 1991, an influential Sami poet and artist, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, published Beaivi Áhcázan (“The sun my father”), in which he used Bonaparte’s historical images alongside his collection of poems. By doing this, the original meaning of the photographs as scientific documents is subverted, “these photographs are no longer a record of the hegemonic narrative of Sami ‘otherness’ but rather reflect histories and memories grounded within the Sami community itself” (Dobbin 2013: 133).
Even more recently, an amateur Sami photographer named Per Ivar Somby used Flickr to publicize an image he created, titled Raseforskning/ Racial Researches. The image (below) includes Bonaparte’s original photographs of Aslak L. Somby cropped and juxtaposed with two contemporary portraits of Per Ivar Somby’s twin brother, positioned in an identical manner to his great-grandfather.
Raseforskning/ Racial Researches, Per Ivar Somby (https://www.flickr.com/photos/perivar/3376473007/)
This image allows for a cross-generational link, and allow Somby to “reclaim ownership of his own family history, overshadowing the colonial context in which the photograph was taken. The personal and familial connections so poignantly preserved in the image turns Bonaparte’s photograph into a document of personal and family identity” (Dobbins 2013: 134). While the photographs have not been repatriated to the source community in a way that we might think of as being a traditional repatriation (as in the return of an artifact to it original source), visual repatriation and photo-elicitation serves as a way for underrepresented indigenous communities to reconnect with their own cultural heritage. Other images from collections taken of Sami people by outsiders to Sami culture have been used to do things like revive the practice of Sami traditional dressmaking, serving to continue a part of the culture that has declining or becoming lost.
I chose to focus on this particular case study because it demonstrates how communities are working with photograph repositories to reclaim their history and add a new level of understanding to the images. While the photograph collections are still held in museums, indigenous communities have been able to work with the repositories to better understand their past. Although informed consent was not part of the creation of the original images in these collections, source communities are working with museums to make them less problematic in the long run. I did not find a lot of information on similar projects being undertaken in North America, but it does seem like visual repatriation and photo-elicitation are growing in popularity. I hope that these types of projects continue around the world, and it is possible for communities to reclaim their photographic history.
References
Dobbin, K., 2013. Exposing Yourself a Second Time: Visual Repatriation in Scandinavian Sápmi. Visual Communication Quarterly. 20(3), pp. 128-143.
Dudding, K., 2005. Visual Repatriation and Photo-Elicitation: Recommendations on Principles and Practices for the Museum Worker. Journal of Museum Ethnography. 17, pp. 218-231.
Edwards, E., 2003. “Talking visual histories: Introduction”. In Laura Peers & Alison K. Brown (Eds.), Museums and source communities (pp. 83–99). New York , N Y: Routledge.
Harper, D., 2002. Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo-Elicitation. Visual Studies. 17(1), pp. 12-26.
Ritzenthaler, M.L., Vogt-O’Connor, D., Zinkham, H., Carnell, B., and Peterson, K., 2010. Photographs: Archival Care and Management. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.
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