Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii
A Note on Geography, Spelling, and Language  xiii
Preface  xvii
Acknowledgments  xix
Introduction. At Least Two Histories of Liberation  1
Part I. What Makes a Popular Photography?
1. Ça bousculait! (It Was Happening!)  41
2. Wild Circulation: Photography as Urban Media  83
3. Decolonizing Print Culture: The Example of Bingo  117
Part II. Republic of Images
4. Africanizing Political Photography  163
5. The Pleasures of State-Sponsored Photography  203
6. African Futures, Lost and Found  240
Notes  265
Bibliography  307
Index 319

About the Author

Jennifer Bajorek is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Visual Studies at Hampshire College and Research Associate in the VIAD Research Centre, in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. She is also author of Counterfeit Capital: Poetic Labor and Revolutionary Irony.

Reviews

“With intimate ethnography, urgent activism, and an intriguing mix of methodological and theoretical tools, Jennifer Bajorek presents a compelling set of arguments about photography's critical role in producing new publics with their own forms of political imagination and civic consciousness. Her book is an absolute pleasure to read and leaves readers with tantalizing possibilities for future scholarship in other sites at the reaches of the French colonial sphere.”
*Mapping Modernisms: Art, Indigeneity, Colonialism*

“Jennifer Bajorek offers a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the transformative power of photography all while telling a compelling story packed with detail and brio. Beautifully written, highly original, and built around a core of remarkable images, Unfixed is unquestionably a major contribution.”
*Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs*

“Unfixed…moves beyond topics that are by now familiar, even canonical. Grounded in rigorous theoretical inquiry and years of in-depth research in the major cities of Senegal and Benin, the book deftly shifts the field toward new terrain. While past scholarship has been concerned with demarcating the Africanity of photography and has focused on issues of identity formation, portraiture, and the colonial gaze, Bajorek instead challenges us to pay attention to photography’s political significance to Africans.”
*CAA Reviews*

“Bajorek’s approach, observations, and suggestions make Unfixed an insightful and illuminating read—not only for researchers of Black or African Studies, but for anyone concerned with vernacular photography.”
*Camera Austria International*

“[Unfixed] contributes to the dismantling of the notion of a monolithic canon of photography history.... Unfixed is a richly layered book that explores a wide variety of concepts, raising thought-provoking questions along the way.”
*ARLIS/NA*

“Jennifer Bajorek’s book is a remarkable achievement; the product of an inquiry that began in 1999 and grew through seven years of field work in Senegal and Benin, Unfixed unearths the extraordinary and largely uncharted territory of photography’s role in what she describes as the ‘decolonial imagination’ of Francophone West Africa.”
*History of Photography*

“Jennifer Bajorek’s Unfixed convincingly and eloquently discusses the role that photography played in fostering decolonial imagination among francophone west Africans. . . . [It is] an engaging and accessible read, a rich resource for scholars and students, and a welcome addition to scholarly works on African photography and decolonization.”
*Africa Today*