The Photographic Archive of Multiculturalism
When we look for traces of the past, what kind of evidence does photography provide? For over thirty years, historians have examined archives as a site of the operation of imperial power. Following Ann Laura Stoler’s instructions to read archives along and against the grain, the “new” imperial history has sought to make sense out of archival silences, archival selections, and archival destructions. While historians largely examine textual traces of the past, in this paper, I ask what can a photographic archive reveal about Britain’s multicultural past? From the beginning of photography’s emergence, practitioners and observers questioned whether photography merely recorded human activity or created new possibilities for the organization of social life. In this paper, I argue that the recognition of Britain as a multicultural society occurred through the production, circulation, and consumption of the photography of everyday multiculture. Examining photographs, particularly those generated by integrationist organizations, I show how photography produced a social reality (multiculture) rather than simply recorded it. Rather than focusing on the experience of ethnic and racial minorities, or the top down production of racial hierarchy and exclusion, I examine how photographs staged multicultural encounters and created the conditions by which experiences that did not conform to the frame of multiculturalism could be displaced and disregarded.
All welcome- this seminar is free to attend, but booking is required.
This page was last updated on 25 April 2025
