Abstract
In this article, I explore the affective responses that Zanele Muholi’s Somnyana Ngonyama series of photographic (self-)portraits evoke for me as a white, South African woman. In this provocative series, Muholi presents a body of images that form an archive in and of itself, and uses her body as an “archive of personal experience.” In so doing, she creates a “new” archival body through the figuration of her own body. This new archival form offers possibilities for the imagination of what a decolonial (an)archive might look like. I suggest that the series’ importance as a decolonial (an)archive is strongly connected to what it reveals to me in relation to how I view the work through the lenses of racialized, gendered, and classed power, as a result of my (white) positionality.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 40-63 |
Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | Visual Anthropology Review |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2020 |
Keywords
- archive of personal experience
- decolonial (an)archive
- positionality
- refigurations
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Anthropology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)