Den dialogiska blicken: Närvaro och performativitet i Edvard Westermarcks (1862-1939) antropologiska fotografier från expeditioner i Marocko 1898-1913

Edvard Westermarck (1862–1939) was a sociologist, social anthropologist, and moral philosopher who, during anthropological expeditions in Morocco (1898-1913), photographed the local population as part of his research method, participant observation. His images are simple and direct. The article discusses a selection of his anthropological photographs depicting people, with the aim of analysing how presence and performativity are expressed in the images. The analysis focuses on the photographed; the subject's presence and the function of the gaze are determined, as well as how we as viewers perceive the images. A third question concerns whether binary tensions are embedded in the images. The theoretical discussion revolves around the gaze as an agent that “acts” and creates a connection between the depicted and the viewer.
The result is that Westermarck's photographs express a new way for anthropology to view humans. The direct and dialogical gaze spans the alienating void between the depicted and the photographer, in contrast to earlier anthropological photographs. A contributing aspect is Westermarck's anti-colonialist stance. His images are an important step in how visual material, namely photographs, slowly became acknowledged as worthy documentary tools during anthropological field expeditions. Alongside photography’s increasingly central role in documentation, a certain degree of affect became embedded in at least Westermarck's images. In this sense, they are predecessors to the “revolutionary” photographs of Bronisław Malinowski, the key figure of modern anthropology.