Picturing a colonial past : the African photographs of Isaac Schapera / John L. Comaroff, Jean Comaroff, & Deborah James, editor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schapera, Isaac, 1905-2003.

Contributor:

Comaroff, John L., 1945-

Comaroff, Jean.

James, Deborah, Dr.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Africa--Pictorial works.

Ethnology.

History.

Manners and customs.

Africa--Social life and customs--Pictorial works.

Africa.

Africa--History--Pictorial works.

Genre:

Pictorial works.

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

xiv, 224 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Other Title:

African photographs of Isaac Schapera

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Summary:

This volume presents for the first time the selected photographs of the renowned British anthropologist Isaac Schapera (1905-2003). Taken between 1929 and 1940, largely during his earliest work among the Kgatla peoples of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), these images reveal an emotional engagement and an aesthetic impulse that Schapera seldom expressed in his writings. Covering a broad spectrum of activities, they include depictions of everything from pot making, thatching, and cattle herding to village architecture, vernacular medicine, rainmaking ceremonies, and initiation rites. Visually fascinating and of exceptional quality, Schapera's photographs capture the uniqueness of an African people at a particular time and place. They are contextualized in Jean and John Comaroff's introduction, while Adam Kuper's biographical sketch of Schapera provides new insight into the life of the photographer. Picturing a Colonial Past reveals not only a rare side of old Botswana, but also of one of the most famous anthropologists who worked there.

Contents:

Editorial note

Isaac Schapera, two portraits of the ethnographer

Letter from Chief Linchwe II of the Kgatla

Introduction: The portraits of an ethnographer as a young man / Jean and John Comaroff

Isaac Schapera (1905-2003) : his life and times / Adam Kuper

The Bakgatla Bagakgafêla : preliminary report of field investigations, 1933 / Isaac Schapera

African images : the photographs of Isaac Schapera in Bechuanaland and elsewhere, 1929-1940

Motse : the architecture of village life

Mo gae : domestic scenes

Ditshwantshó : portraits

Bana : children, at play and work

Bogwêra : initiation rites

Tiro : the work of production

Moroka : the rainmaker

Kgotla : the public sphere

Banna ba ditshaba : others.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226114118

0226114112

9780226114125

0226114120

OCLC:

70114589

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description