Photography and African futures

This paper interrogates the visual images and texts Nigerians posted on social media -Facebook as a counter-narrative to President Buhari's narrative that 'we have a very young population, a lot of them have not been to school, and they are claiming they should sit and do nothing but get housing, health care, and education free'. The narrative of Muhammadu Buhari was interpreted by Nigerians as suggesting that the youths are lazy. This attracted a swift reaction from Nigerians, who used social media platforms as the medium through which to present their counter-narrative not merely to the President but global consumers that Nigerian youths are not lazy. In doing this, eight visual images that show young Nigerians engaged in different socio-economic activities were analysed and some interactive texts that convey counter-narrative were interpreted. The analysis reveals that despite government failure in providing a developmental plan for the youths in Nigeria, they are either acquiring skills in furniture making or fashion designs. Some others engage in hawking of different products as a means of livelihood. Besides, a group of young men waiting under the sun on motorcycles in another visual image reflects commercial motorcycle transporters. We concluded that the visual images demonstrate that young Nigerians are not lazy but hardworking and energetic.

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“…Thus, the visual images make these youths purposely visible and project them by recording their visible social world (Vokes and Newbury 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counter narrative of President Buhari’s narrative on Nigerian youths with visual images and texts on Facebook

James

Sule

2021

Visual Studies

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“…Anthropological engagements with photography, most notably through the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1990), have often emphasized this pastness, although recent work—such as that by Azoulay (2008), Strassler (2010), Campt (2017), Vokes and Newberry (2018), Karinkurayil (2020), and Wooldridge (2021)—points to its futurity. This article aspires to extend these discussions by ethnographically documenting the diverse futurities and camera times of photography.…”

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confidence: 99%

What Time is the Visual? Photography and the History of the Future

Pinney¹

2023

Visual Anthropology Review

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Part of a broader inquiry that asks, "What time is the visual?" this article uses ethnographic observations and recent theoretical work to suggest that photography is as much future-oriented as it is a zone for the preservation of the past. I document different temporal orientations of photographs, drawing on historical studio images featuring clocks and photographic paraphernalia and ethnographic research into memorial images in Nepal and central India. I embrace Ariella Azoulay and Karen Strassler's insights and critique the paradigms established by Pierre Bourdieu and John Tagg. The article concludes with an experiment with photography's prophetic and analytic potential to make visible an "anterior future" in relation to the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster of 1984.

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“… 1 For example, a photographer named Charles Trotter – whose photographs are now part of the Empire and Commonwealth photographic collection held by the Bristol Archives – was a professional whose contracts often involved photographing bridges, petrol stations and buildings in central Nairobi. On the photography of modernity in Africa – and in particular on how photographers have attempted to capture African futures – see Vokes and Newbury (2018). …”

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confidence: 99%

Mobile people, phones and photography: Somali visual practices in Nairobi's Eastleigh estate

Carrier¹

2019

Africa

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The coming of the mobile phone camera has transformed photography. This article explores this transformation through a case study of photography in Eastleigh, a Nairobi estate that is home to many thousand Somalis, both Kenyan Somalis and refugees from Somalia. It is a trade hub for East Africa, a social and economic hub for the global Somali diaspora, and a place regarded as suspect in a country where Somalis have long been marginalized. This article examines Eastleigh as photographic subject and setting, comparing the ubiquity of mobile phone photography there with seldom-practised more traditional forms of photography that are often treated with suspicion in an estate subject to securitized government policy and negative press. It shows how mobile phone photography helps people in the estate communicate visually with the wider Somali diaspora through social media, and how it helps people sell their goods, using as a case study a particular archive of images sent through WhatsApp to the author by Mohaa, a friend of his and a trader in the estate. The article also adds a political dimension to recent anthropological theorizing on mobile photography, showing how, in Eastleigh, Somalis have used photography and social media to take control of the way in which the estate is represented visually, and to demand from the state better services and better treatment.

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Photography and African futures

Cited by 34 publications

References 18 publications

Counter narrative of President Buhari’s narrative on Nigerian youths with visual images and texts on Facebook

Counter narrative of President Buhari’s narrative on Nigerian youths with visual images and texts on Facebook

What Time is the Visual? Photography and the History of the Future

Mobile people, phones and photography: Somali visual practices in Nairobi's Eastleigh estate

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