Presentation Date: Feb 14, 2026
AGSA Abstract
What did it mean to be photographed as an African during Europe’s scramble for Africa and in the ensuing imperialism? How was the African subject carefully curated for European consumption across the pond? In what way did the hooks of colonization remain embedded in the African psyche following the official end of colonization? Using five images from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I shall attempt to answer these questions. The selected period is vast because the cacophony of evidence is persistent in its ideological preservation of colonial ideals, and of their harmful remnants in the post-colonial African psyche. The curated images are therefore representative of this time span and have been chosen with the hope of tracking how colonial power was performed during colonization, and how that performance is reinstated by African leaders. The essay will be divided into five sections with the aim of tracking how photography was utilized as a tool of ideological dominance and power creation, and how it continues to serve the ghosts of past imperialism by resurfacing in manifestations of neo-colonial ideation. Through an analysis of these images, I will demonstrate how 1) Photographs function as sites of colonial performatives of dominance, 2) African leaders utilize these performatives of dominance in their rule and 3) How this utilization demonstrates the persistence of Colonial ideology in the African psyche.
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