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David Chia ’17April 23 2015

CARTOGRAPHY & PHOTOGRAPHY: THE COLONIAL SYNCRETISATION OF SITE AND SIGHT UNDER THE CLOAK OF THE OBJECTIVE CAMERA

Imagine for us seeing alien photographs for the very first time; surely, from such a

viewing would shift our perception of the universe dramatically. Yet also, from such a

viewing, we begin to ask: is it safe? How present are the bodies in these images? And,

assuming its reality, how would that shape our image of ‘new worlds’? During the Elizabethan

era, maps visualised unity of kingdoms, creating a local and national identity, eventually

forming the United Kingdom. Similarly, the Victorian era parallels Elizabethan maps with

global maps and photographs of colonial territory such as India, and the East. As such, there

are interesting parallels between cartography and photography in the role of mapping a

theatre of an Empire. Both encounter the transition from site to sight, and both aim to

preserve and mortify a currently unstable land of bodies for fear of loss. The taxonomical

categorisation of anthropological photographs, not only fuses art and science as in the case of

map-making, but also creates a cloaks of objectivity in the readership of these images.

Lamprey’s grid used as a device for measuring subjects in photographs shares similarities to

Crane’s map of the Empire and Speed’s map of Britannia and China. C. H. Read claims

photography’s ability to generate “facts about which there can be no question.” The role of 1

photography during the late 19th century has transformed from a Rejlander, Robinson-like

moralising agent of the Arts to one that is applied regimented scientific methods. The

chemical composition of photography, like its scientific depictions, effectively made

photography a vital tool in the transmission of data - particularly, ‘reliable’ data. Framing my

As quoted in Pinney, Christopher. Photography and Anthropology. pp. 25.1

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paper with the background readings of Anthropology and Photography by Christopher Pinney

and On Photography by Susan Sontag, interwoven with Michel Foucault’s philosophies of

power and by comparing the anthropological works of C. & F.W. Dammann Races of Mankind

with the cartography of Walter Crane’s Imperial Federation and John Speed’s 17th century

maps, I argue that anthropological photographs, paralleled with cartography, rationalise and

entrench a theatre of imperialism and power under the veil of objectivity and Science.

Photography has undertook a quest for knowledge. Anthropologists of the late 19th

century and early 20th century had been preoccupied with the camera as a tool to record. For

Maurice Vidal Portman (1861-1935), “objectivity” and “clarity” were required, not

“aesthetics” . According to him, bodies are to be “stark naked” under “correct general 2

lighting” without any fuzziness. Agency in photography is once again returned to the light–

through a scientific methodology, anthropologist used photography as raw data of the

diversity of the world’s peoples. Photography has viewed to be more accurate compared with

verbal data and personal observation for they lacked the methodological rigour. Sontag writes

that “photographs are valued because they give information” yet - she adds - “their value as

information is of the same order as fiction.” The quest for information through the capturing 3

of images by photography is embedded within the European fictional framework of

colonising the world.

Compared with photography, maps too operate on a value-free objectivity. Yet, they are

never value free images; “both in the selectivity of their content and in their signs and styles of

representation maps (and photographs) are a way of conceiving, articulating, and structuring

the human world, which is biased towards promoted by, and exerts influence upon particular

sets of social relations." My comparative analysis will be set up on this Foucauldian model of 4

For a more in-depth information, read subchapter ‘Living Beings and Fuzzygraphs’ in Chapter 1 of Pinney, Christopher. 2

Photography and Anthropology. pp 35-41.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp 22.3

As quoted in Harley, J. B., and Denis E. Cosgrove. Maps, Knowledge and Power. pp 278. Original source: Carl O. Sauer, ‘The 4

education of a geographer’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 46 (1956), pp. 287-99, esp. pp. 289.

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power and the panopticon. He writes that the “quest for truth was not an objective and

neutral activity but was intimately related to the ‘will to power’ of the truth seeker.

Knowledge was thus a form of power, a way of presenting one’s own values in the guise of

scientific disinterestedness.” Both cartography and photography, embedded within an 5

imperialist context, serve as a ways of exercising power by retaining and controlling

information or knowledge. While maps were an “invention in the control of space and

facilitated the geographical expansion of social systems undergirding medium of state

power”, anthropological photographs were a control of anatomies of the ‘Other’, facilitated

by the cultural expansion of the ‘White Men’s Burden’ through photographs of faces, skulls,

and human bodies.

In the anthropological photographs of C. & F.W. Dammann, enclosed within an

intricately carved green book cover that writes Races of Mankind (fig. 1), we are presented

with a collection of portraits around the world that construct a visual typology of humanity.

From Germanic, Romanic, Slavonians to the Middle East, South Asian, Southeast Asian, East

Asian, to Australia, South America, and the Pacific Islands, Races of Mankind (1875) appeared

in the age of rapid classification of the natural world due to the pioneering work on botany

by Carl Linnaeus. Inspired by the revolutionary and evolutionary work of Charles Darwin’s 6

On the Origin of Species, anthropologists (though they never considered called themselves that)

were optimistic about applying the similar study of botany to human societies. The English

edition of Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men by C. & F.W.

Dammann, adapted from the German edition of 1873, presents a conjectural history on

human civilisation wherein the evolutionary narrative starts with the “civilised” Europeans

and ends with Australians and Polynesians.

Poster, Mark. "Foucault and History." Social Research. pp. 116-42, esp. pp. 118-19.5

Carl Linnaeus, 1753, Species Plantarum, (Stockholm: Laurentius Salvius) 6

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The arrangement of these photographs legitimises the narrative of the ‘White Men’s

Burden’, and by extension the colonial enterprise, through its “selectivity” and intervention.

Hartley writes that “as much as guns and warships, maps have been the weapons of

imperialism.” In the same way maps claimed lands on paper before they were effectively

occupied, anthropological photographs captured on paper people they are yet to culturally

modernise and industrialise. More than that, both maps and photography anticipated

empire – they were used to legitimise the reality of an empire, creating myths which would

assist in the maintenance of the territorial and cultural status quo. Walter Crane’s Imperial

Federation (fig. 1) shows the world, with Britain’s territorial acquisitions depicted in pink, in

contrast to the neutrally coloured regions that appear abundant for colonisation. It was

published 24 July 1886 as a large, colour supplement (78 x 60cm) for The Graphic, an

illustrated weekly newspaper printed in London. Maps such as these have been used as an

“aggressive complement” to the rhetoric of speeches, newspapers, and written texts extolling

the virtues of empire. The world is made sizeable from the mass production of such an 7

image; the maritime lines and defined boundaries exhibited this imperial power and process

Harley, J. B., and Denis E. Cosgrove. Maps, Knowledge and Power. pp 282.7

Fig 1. Book cover forRaces of Mankind (1875)C. & F.W. DammannEthnographical Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men (London: Trubner)Douglas Stewart Rare Books

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because they had been imposed on the continent with little reference to indigenous peoples.

As Harley puts: “the stroke of a pen across a map could determine the lives and deaths of

millions of people.” 8

As such, photography supplements the geographical legitimisation of maps with the

faces and bodies of ‘natives’ and Britannia’s colonial subjects. C. & F.W. Dammann project

demonstrates the similar “aggressive” enterprise when put into the context of Sontag’s gun-

camera analogy. Despite the camera being non-lethal, the predatory act of photographing

someone is “a sublimated murder.” Indeed, the anthropological photographs have been 9

sublimated into a sanctioned study of human race –  in the name of Science. The albumen

photographs of C. & F.W. Dammann’s project are products of such aggression, captured in

cheap temporal spaces of equally-sized containments. The plate of aborigines in the Continent

in Australia (fig. 2) demonstrates not only the fading of cheap albumen but also the taxonomy

of equally-sized frames, granting further legitimacy to these portraits as a study. The

influences of J. H. Lamprey’s 1869 grid proposal can be seen in the indexical arrangement of

the Australian aborigines. Lamprey’s system of photographing subjects against a background 10

grid of 5-cm (2-inch) squares formed by hanging silk thread on large wooden frame strove for

a homogeneity on the destruction of singularity and embodiment. In so saying, the reading of

these works calls for, rather than an individual analysis, one that takes arrangement and form

into consideration. John Speed’s map of Kingdom of China (1626) and Theatre of the Great

Empire of Britain (1611/12), despite having been created about 250 years before the late 19th

century photographs, share interesting similarities of form to that of C. & F.W. Dammann.

Around the frames of both maps, we are presented with the syncretisation of cartography

and earlier hints of anthropology. Not only do Speed’s maps demonstrate the long historical

tradition of marrying cartography and anthropology, they also reveal the similar grid-like

Harley, J. B., and Denis E. Cosgrove. Maps, Knowledge and Power. pp 283.8

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp 15.9

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp 28.10

Chia 6Fig 2. Imperial Federation Map Showing the Extent of the British Empire in 1886. approx. 78 x 60cm. Originally published in The Graphic on 24 July

1886. Artist: Walter Crane (bottom left; see text Fig. 2) Statistical Information: Captain J.C. R. Comb, M.P. British Library.

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indexical Scientific containments. The racial-types in the Speed’s maps are framed in the same

way C. & F.W. Dammann framed his.

What differs between the two, however, is a colonial landscape and narrative; Speed’s

maps were drawn at a time when the imperialist narrative remained nonexistent whereas C.

& F.W. Dammann’s photographs embedded in such a narrative. The discrimination is made

apparent when comparing the sizes of frames. Speed’s maps framed the racial types in similar

sized frames, whereas C. & F.W. Damman’s plates had racial types framed in different sizes.

The plate of China (fig. 4), viewed higher in the hierarchy of races, had photographs framed

Fig 3. Book Plate of Continent of Australia (1875) C. & F.W. Dammann Ethnographical Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men (London: Trubner) Douglas Stewart Rare Books

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in varied sizes compared to the plate of Australian aborigines which were uniform in size.

These maps and photographs translated site into sight; yet, the unseen - or “silences in map”

as Harley calls them - reveals “hidden political messages.” Speed’s Kingdom of China featured 11

tools and weaponry unseen in the plate on China. The exclusion of technology in many of

these anthropological photograph furthers my argument on reinforcing the theatre of

imperialism. C. & F.W. Dammann disrupts the very ‘objectivity’ he is set out to accomplish

when he arranges and strings together an evolutionary hierarchy; all hints at technological

Harley, J. B., and Denis E. Cosgrove. Maps, Knowledge and Power. pp 290.11

Fig 4. Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain: presenting an exact geography of the kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland,. . .(1603-1611) John Speed Cambridge University Library

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advancement is deliberately left out in these photographs. Sontag writes that “photography is

not just the result of an encounter between an event and a photographer; picture-taking is an

event in itself.” Indeed the a theatre of technological power is not only present between the 12

viewer’s engagement with the photographs but also the event of photography itself. A tool of

modernity, the camera intervenes into colonial site, visually violating its subjects.

In the same way cartography imposes in its boundary-drawing little reference to

indigenous peoples, photography captures in its photo-taking theatrics a lack of consent and

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp 11.12

Fig 5. Kingdom of China, John Speed Originally published 1626 53.3 x 41.3 cm

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understanding. Many primitives refused to be photographed for fear of their “souls being

captured.” Their resistance to photography was - as analysed by Pinney - “a colonial genre.” 13 14

He adds that the perturbation towards the camera was a culminated effect of other structures

of authority, colonialism, and prisons. As such, the event of photo-taking possesses the same

power as the stroke of the pen on the map in that the camera became a fear-inducing

For further information, read subchapter ‘On not Wanting to be Photographed’ in Chapter 2 of Pinney, Christopher. 13

Photography and Anthropology. pp 69-76, esp. pp. 74-76.

Pinney, Christopher. Photography and Anthropology. pp 7514

Fig 6. Book Plate of China (1875) C. & F.W. Dammann Ethnographical Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men (London: Trubner) Douglas Stewart Rare Books

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mechanism. The machine evoked mystery for many locals. The Boro people viewed Thomas

Whiffen’s camera as an “infernal machine, designed to steal the souls of those who were

exposed to its baleful eye.” The photographer was seen as a form of mind-reader; and 15

because many of these peoples have not seen themselves in miniature forms before, they

ascribed magic to a product of technology. Within the cosmological worldview of the natives,

magic became a way of rationalising the mysterious powers of a new way of seeing.

“To photograph people,” Sontag writes, “is to see them as they never see themselves

[and to have] knowledge of them they can never have.” The abundance of these bodies of 16

photograph alludes an omnipresent Foucauldian surveillance, notably connected to warfare.

Cartography and anthropological photography, under a voyeuristic eye, sees the natives,

discusses them, and gathers knowledge of them that they are not privy to. As such, they

become too “a form of knowledge and a form of power.” Just as the historian paints the 17

landscape of the past in the colours of the present, the photographer and cartographer

capture and replicate, be it consciously or not, a landscape of bodies embedded within a

particular political system – a colonial one. The collection of ethnographic photographs

furnish evidence of the world. They become proof that the peoples of the world are captured

in the materiality of an albumen print. The world as presented in C. & F.W. Dammann 18

gallery has been mortified in images; they are consumable, flippable, and seemingly accessible

(in all regards of the word ‘accesible’).

Maps and anthropological photographs both translate site into an sight –  one that

naturalises the colonial endeavours in a deliberately crafted narrative that is either

geographical or anthropological. The racial types framed in Imperial Landscape peer out of

frames in freedom as the banner above it suggests. They face the pink glory of Britain’s great

Pinney, Christopher. Photography and Anthropology. pp 76.15

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp 14.16

Poster, Mark. "Foucault and History." Social Research. pp. 119.17

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp 5.18

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empire, smiling at its status quo. Whereas, the primitives in C. & F.W. Dammann’s gallery are

framed into safe albumen frames; they are viewed at a safe, contained distance– wherein

power is derived. As I have demonstrated in John Speed’s maps, cartography and

anthropology has had a long tradition of being syncretisation. The colonisation of land in

cartography and the colonisation of bodies in anthropology – proved in photography under

the cloak of Science – legitimise and naturalises colonial endeavours through the Scientific

cloak. Whether a map or photography under the banner of objective study, as most

anthropologist and cartographers have been, it fails to escape the networks of power

deployed. Often grounded by academicians in text, books, and the written word, both fields

of photography and cartography engender a new way of seeing. There is a symbiotic

relationship between them in further complementing the narrative of imperialism: one in

land, and another in the culture. Site is translated into sight; the theatre of imperialism is

performed not only in the product of photography - that is, the photography, but also the act

of photo-taking. Lamprey’s grid strove for homogeneity within the frame yet the very frame

and its arrangements with other frames subvert such desire for information.

Indeed, Sontag was right to point out photograph’s “value as information is of the

same order as fiction.” For beneath the facade of objectivity, clarity, and methodology - 19

valued as information - lay the imperial magical fictions of a political propaganda, boundary

making, and the preservation of law and order through pacification.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. pp. 22.19

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WORKS CITED

Dammann, Carl and Frederick W. Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men. Trubner, London, 1875.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon, 1977. Print.

Hargreaves, Roger, and Peter Hamilton. The Beautiful and the Damned: The Rise of Celebrity and Surveillance Photography in the Nineteenth Century. Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2001. Print.

Harley, J. B., and Denis E. Cosgrove. Maps, Knowledge and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. Print.

Pinney, Christopher. Photography and Anthropology. London: Reaktion, 2011. Print.

Poster, Mark. "Foucault and History." Social Research 49.1, Modern Masters (1982): 116-42. JSTOR. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/40970855?ref=no-x-route:bef2f5e9576c7e09e1b7bac8b47aec3d>.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. Print.