The Spectacularization of the Suffering of Others in Leprosy Photos from Africa, in the First Half of the 20th Century

Abstract

Colonial images of Africa include a strange set of photos depicting “sick bodies”. Photography was an efficient visual resource in constructing anideological justification of the “civilizing mission” of a self-proclaimed “altruistic” and “scientific” colonialism. By analyzing photographs of Africans suffering from Hansen’s disease in the first half of the twentieth century, we unravel the relationship between this “leprous Africa” and the coalescing interests of missionaries, physicians, and colonial authorities. Based on images from international archives, this study approaches the visual derogatory representation of African alterity, to which photography lent its “objectivity” and contributed to the spectacularization of the suffering of others.