The Photos That We Don’t Get to See
The Photos That We Don’t Get to See
Sovereignties, Archives, and the 1928 Massacre of Banana Workers in Colombia
This chapter describes a photograph of five male workers posed for a picture in Magdalena, Colombia. Against a backdrop of infinite black space, these workers came together in their best, representing themselves as serious and dignified, in spite of their impoverishment. As such, the photo reveals how five working people sculpted themselves for a camera, projecting themselves to unknown viewers as respectable people at home with the comforts that the formal studio setting staged for early-twentieth-century cosmopolitan imaginaries. More importantly, it exposes one way that imperial sovereignty was challenged and reasserted. The workers went into the studio as self-conscious strike leaders, seeking to fashion a way of producing bananas that was consistent with Colombian labor laws.
Keywords: cosmopolitan imaginaries, imperial sovereignty, photograph, formal studio, working people
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
