Social images through visual images: the use of drawings and photographs in the Western representation of the aborigines of Tierra del Fuego (Southern South America)

FIORE, DANAE

PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY

JAMES & JAMES LTD.

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2005 vol. 4 p. 169 - 182

1465-5187

This paper analyses the creation of social images (culturally biased representations) about Fuegian aborigines through the production of visual images (drawings and photographs) by European voyagers, missionaries and ethnographers.  The images are evaluated as records which offer rich and complex information about both the recorder and the recorded subjects through a consideration of the context in which they were published and the prevailing socio-historical situation .  The creation and manipulation of visual records by Western agents  has dual elements, in which the representation of the social ?other? (the Fuegians) bears clear elements  to the representation of the social ?self? (the Europeans).  However, the Fuegians themselves were not necessarily passive subjects, but could act as active agents, negotiating who was photographed and in what situations.  Over time, the prevailing representation of Fuegians changes from an initial idealisation of their status as aboriginals, to a population of potential religious converts and finally to their portrayal as ?unpolluted? aborigines in ethnographic photography.   The paper concludes by considering how Fuegian societies and the impact of Western people have been re-considered through a re-contextualisation of these same images within a recent museum display in Argentina.