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Africa’s Reductive Images, Contesting the Sources, and New Generations as Passive Victims: A Reflection on Historical and Global Representational Practices
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
among rival powers; and economic interests went together with cultural and nationalistic
ambitions. Mostly, they were compared to joyous ritual displays of richness and power
‘where possessions were given away and even destroyed in great numbers to gain pres-
tige and to outdo others’ (Brooks, 2013: 71-81; Corbey, 1993: 339).
Simply, colonial displays justified imperialism through economics. Colonies were expen-
sive trophies for imperialist nations and needed to provide raw materials and/or markets
for the metropole. The desire, especially of new colonial powers such as Germany, Italy
and Belgium, was then to prove to their citizens that they were indeed world powers
(Korasick, 2005: 33). Moreover, one of the main targets of colonial empires was to use the
exhibition opportunities to publicize colonial policies and to manipulate public attitudes
toward the newly acquired territories.
Figure 1: The European Scramble For Africa
In this sense, for instance, according to Brooks (2013), the French colonial exhibits of
1889 were mainly claimed to be used for “civilizing the metropole”. By displaying the
empire’s indigenous inhabitants and by offering visitors the illusion of traveling to the col-
onies, exposition organizers attempted to instill the notion of a Greater France.
Source: Schiffman, R. (2013). Hunger, food security, and the African land grab. Retrieved
from
So surely, material culture displays in European museums of the late 19
th
century were
devised to create desired effects on viewers (Korasick, 2005: 32). Serving as signifiers
of imperial sovereignty, these objects were also meant as scientific research subjects. In
this sense, they were manipulated to provide ‘proof’ of racial inferiority and justify colonial
