Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies
  4. Issue Home

Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies - Current Issue

New Directions for Photography in the Pacific

New Directions for Photography in the Pacific, Jun 2024

  • Editorial

      • Editorial

        https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00188_2

        Historical photographs from the Pacific produced by non-Indigenous subjects often reflect the perspectives, biases and agendas of the photographers and the societies they represented. By critically analysing these images and the contexts in which they were produced, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of the nuanced dynamics of cultural exchange, negotiation and (potentially) resistance that characterized interactions between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous visitors in the Pacific. Nevertheless, much of the scholarship on photography in the Pacific has been produced by settler-colonial scholars, and too often remains focused on the photographers themselves. This volume seeks to make a contribution to extant knowledge of photography in the Pacific through four articles and one report that centre Indigenous history, foreground the work of emerging scholars and highlight newly discovered collections of photographs.

  • Articles

      • Photographs as layered objects in Oceania

        https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00183_1

        Historical photographs from the Pacific were often produced by white photographers, but they nevertheless serve as records of historical and cultural significance to Indigenous communities today. Although scholarship on photography from the Pacific has increased since the 1990s, the field has not entirely kept up with broader critical discussions in visual studies and Pacific Islands studies. This article takes a material approach to photographs, arguing for them (in spite of their flatness) as layered objects, much in the way taonga, or precious heirlooms, might be conserved and displayed through wrapping, binding and layering. The discussion focuses on two photo-based images: an ambrotype of a Tongan missionary, Barnabas ‘Ahongalu, created in Fiji in the 1860s and a pastel painting based on a family photograph by contemporary Native Hawaiian artist Michele Zalopany. By considering the multiple and layered histories present in these images, this article departs from an approach to photographs from Oceania as solely products of settler-colonialist and imperial desires. Instead, it seeks to engender new directions in conversations about photographs and photography that centre Indigenous experiences and histories.

    • ‘Where is the suitable trail’: Politics and piety in portrait photographs of Emma Rooke, 1864–66

      https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00186_1

      This article analyses how photographs of Queen Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke made between 1864 and 1866 were connected to her pursuit of a (proper, virtuous) path forward for herself and her people after the deaths of her son and husband. The article opens with the (lament) ‘No Waiʻaleʻale Ke Aloha’, which invites new ways of thinking about portrait photographs of Queen Emma in the wake of these tremendous personal and political losses. Following this it addresses the connections between photographs of Emma and Hawaiian mourning and memorialization before delving into a discussion of the ways photography was entangled with her political and religious goals. These goals included establishing the Anglican mission in Hawaiʻi and developing a lifelong friendship with Queen Victoria. There are notable similarities within photographs of these two queens suggesting that photography enabled Queen Emma to tap into the (power) associated with Queen Victoria and Christian feminine power. The careful cultivation of her self-image in portrait photographs became a significant form of empowerment for Emma. The final section continues discussing this photographic co-mingling through the lens of international fellowship. It considers how Queen Emma used gifts of photography to create a kin-like relationship between herself and Queen Victoria, recalling the discussions of religion and mourning addressed in previous parts of the article.

    • Photography, capitalism and empire: A case study of the

      https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00185_1

      Photographically illustrated handbooks became popular in the 1890s and supplemented the official Annual Reports and Blue Books. Handbooks were both an instrument of propaganda and a prospectus for potential investors and settlers and served a documentary purpose by providing a glimpse of a colony’s natural resources, economy, European life and Indigenous peoples. The handbook phenomenon, globally, has been largely overlooked by historians, despite adding to the complex archive generated by mid-century colonies. This article analyses the way photographs operated in the handbooks, particularly the inclusions and omissions in the many editions and reprints in the 1924–43 period, to provide insights into the ways a British colony – Fiji – was being remade and reshaped by capitalism and colonialism.

    • Photography of indenture

      https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00187_1

      The 1882 photography book by British photographer Colonel Henry Stuart Wortley, , features an image of a family of service workers. Wortley, who only briefly passed through the island, refers to the couple in the photograph as his ‘servants’. This article traces the margins of the journey of Wortley, as well as that of Lady Annie Brassey, an ultra-wealthy traveller and photography enthusiast who visited Tahiti in 1876 and who contributed the letterpress to Wortley’s book. By analysing the text and images of the book and looking at the historical context of Tahiti at that time, and the place European military personnel, travellers, entrepreneurs, royals and local workers had in the island’s economy and society, this article argues for the incentives and implications of trivializing and invisiblizing Tahitian labour. Looking at our engagement with a photograph as a transtemporal performance, beginning in the photograph’s commission, through the moment of encounter and until its printing and viewing years later, this article considers as a beginning of an entanglement the encounter between Wortley and the Tahitian family. I discuss how, by travelling in 2022 to Tahiti and revisiting Wortley’s photographs in different locations around the island, I aimed to influence those entanglements.

Volumes & issues

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error