Unfixed Photography and Decolonial Imagination in West Africa
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Jennifer Bajorek is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Visual Studies at Hampshire College and Research Associate in the VIAD Research Centre, in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. She is also author of Counterfeit Capital: Poetic Labor and Revolutionary Irony.âWith intimate ethnography, urgent activism, and an intriguing mix of methodological and theoretical tools, Jennifer Bajorek presents a compelling set of arguments about photography's critical role in producing new publics with their own forms of political imagination and civic consciousness. Her book is an absolute pleasure to read and leaves readers with tantalizing possibilities for future scholarship in other sites at the reaches of the French colonial sphere.â
- Elizabeth Harney, coeditor of, Mapping Modernisms: Art, Indigeneity, Colonialism
âJennifer Bajorek offers a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the transformative power of photography all while telling a compelling story packed with detail and brio. Beautifully written, highly original, and built around a core of remarkable images, <i>Unfixed</i> is unquestionably a major contribution.â
- Christopher Pinney, author of, Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs
<p>â<i>Unfixed</i>âŚmoves beyond topics that are by now familiar, even canonical. Grounded in rigorous theoretical inquiry and years of in-depth research in the major cities of Senegal and Benin, the book deftly shifts the field toward new terrain. While past scholarship has been concerned with demarcating the Africanity of photography and has focused on issues of identity formation, portraiture, and the colonial gaze, Bajorek instead challenges us to pay attention to photographyâs political significance to Africans.â</p>
- Prita Meier, CAA Reviews
âBajorekâs approach, observations, and suggestions make <i>Unfixed</i> an insightful and illuminating readânot only for researchers of Black or African Studies, but for anyone concerned with vernacular photography.â
- Daniela Yvonne Baumann, Camera Austria International
â[<i>Unfixed</i>] contributes to the dismantling of the notion of a monolithic canon of photography history.... <i>Unfixed</i> is a richly layered book that explores a wide variety of concepts, raising thought-provoking questions along the way.â
- Jane Darcovich, ARLIS/NA
âJennifer Bajorekâs book is a remarkable achievement; the product of an inquiry that began in 1999 and grew through seven years of field work in Senegal and Benin, <i>Unfixed</i> unearths the extraordinary and largely uncharted territory of photographyâs role in what she describes as the âdecolonial imaginationâ of Francophone West Africa.â
- Jordan Troeller, History of Photography
âJennifer Bajorekâs <i>Unfixed </i>convincingly and eloquently discusses the role that photography played in fostering decolonial imagination among francophone west Africans. . . . [It is] an engaging and accessible read, a rich resource for scholars and students, and a welcome addition to scholarly works on African photography and decolonization.â
- Haythem Guesmi, Africa Today