Between the colonial gaze and humanist discourse: the visual representation of Ethiopians through Western lenses

Abstract

This article proposes a comparative analysis of the visual representation of Ethiopian peoples based on two objects: 19^th-century colonial photography and contemporary humanistic photography in the 21^st century. Through the concept of the colonial gaze, developed by Ann Kaplan, and Ariella Azoulay's understanding of photography as an imperial practice, the article examines how the visual production of French photographers Hippolyte Arnoux and Eric Lafforgue, despite their temporal and contextual distances, shares visual strategies that conceal the social and political reality of the subjects portrayed. Based on an iconographic corpus composed of photographs by these authors, the analysis seeks not only to broaden the discussion on the representation of Africans through Western lenses, but also to question the practices used by photographers. Thus, it is concluded that, although Eric Lafforgue's contemporary photographic discourse alludes to a humanist sensibility, it still reproduces the colonial hierarchies and practices of power used by Hippolyte Arnoux, which demonstrates the persistence of dynamics of exoticisation and the construction of a timeless otherness, geared towards Western consumption.