Voicing silences in the colonial photographic archive

Abstract Drawing on re‐engagement work with physical type portraits made by Government Anthropologist N. W. Thomas in West Africa in the early 20th century, the article discusses strategies of “re‐sounding images”’ to address silences in the colonial photographic archive. Acknowledging that archival silences may result both from acts of epistemic violence and from acts of resistance again such violence, the essay explores three approaches to bringing voice into relation to these contentious images: considering the “orality” of images in photo elicitation, rearticulating photographic archives with sound and text archives, and collaborating with West African storytellers to speculatively “voice silences” in the archive. This article is part of the Special Section: (Re)Sounding Images.