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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
rica. Still Africa is associated to these attributes in the minds of the international publics,
well indicating us the transfer or reproduction nature of the gaze, through generations.
The primary source of information for the Western society about Africa in the 19
th
century
was reports of missionaries. Missionary reports were also the main sources for the study
and classification of primitive societies, while anthropology was only an “armchair” dis-
cipline. In addition, the information passed through church journals and newsletters. The
most important exposure to the foreign culture was lecture tours undertaken by mission-
aries on leave from their positions (Korasick, 2005). According to Korasick, during the
tours, audiences were captivated by accounts of Africans as the strange people and the
dangers that the missionaries experienced. These lectures were illustrated with collected
popular objects including masks, fetishes, tools and clothes; some were trade goods,
gifts, and trophies (2005: 12). These objects were also considered as signs of success
of the mission, and the collection practice illustrated the aesthetic sensibilities of the
collectors who often developed an appreciation for the arts and crafts of the people they
sought to convert and civilize.
Morally, missionary collections and exhibitions were not that different from other ‘non-spir-
itual’ forms. In the exhibitions, t
ens of thousands of visitors appeared to see Africans in
the missionary exhibitions. Immorally, some exhibitions displayed African women with
naked breasts, which the Church did not appear to be discomfited by, and in fact had
no objection at all to the “exhibition” of human beings, either (Sanchez-Gomez, 2009:
671-692).
Although the Unites States was not actively involved in the colonization of Africa, it was
the major exporter of Africans as slaves. The US has been introduced to the modern Af-
rica through its missionaries. Missionaries, together with traders, were the important and
early promoters of Africa to Americans, and commissioned to bring the light of Christian-
ity to ‘heathen Africans’ and Mohammedans (Korasick, 2005: 1).
Missionaries and traders as promoters of Africa to America were often “collectors of the
curios from their chosen regions of the world” to use them to illustrate lectures. Accord-
ing to Korasick (2005: 2), traders such as Karl Steckelmann and missionaries like William
Henrey Sheppard followed an established pattern of collecting objects for education-
al purposes as well as for aesthetic pleasure. The collections were not limited only to
educational and aesthetic pleasures, most importantly, there was an aspect of propa-
ganda behind the collections; and “depending on who the collector was the collection
could convey messages of economic opportunity, African potential, or African barbarity”.
Through their writings and lectures, “a vision of an exciting, dangerous, mysterious land”
was intermingled with the hints of vast potential wealth and the spread of the Christian
gospel” (Korasick, 2005: 2).
