Book review: Christopher Wright (2013), The Echo of Things. The Lives of Photographs in the Solomon Islands. Durham, London, Duke University Press

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Wright, Christopher. 2013. The Echo of Things. The Lives of Photographs in the Solomon Islands. Durham, London: Duke University Press. 240 pp. Pb.: $27.95.

ISBN: 9780822355106.

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Anthropological Notebooks, XX/2, 2014

The book offers a stimulating discussion of colonial photography and suggests WKDWWKLVLVQRWRQO\µDPDWWHURI(XURSHDQVLPSRVLQJWKHLURZQIDQWDVLHVWKHLUFRORQLDO YLVLRQRQGRFLOHSRSXODWLRQV¶SRQWKHRWKHUVLGHRIWKHFRORQLDOHQFRXQWHUORFDO SHRSOHZHUHDEOHWRFRQVWUXFWWKHLURZQLPDJHVRUDWOHDVWWRSOD\ZLWKWKHPIRULQVWDQFH by responding to the European obsessions about headhunting and cannibalism. Wright also shows how photography was used by Christians missionaries to transform savage ERGLHVLQWR³&KULVWLDQ´ERGLHVDQGVXJJHVWVWKDWFRQWHPSRUDU\DWWLWXGHVWRZDUGVROGSKR- tographs reproduce this temporal shift between savage ancestors and today’s population.

The book thus covers a whole range of issues related to the effects of photography on the formation of social groups. There are inspiring paragraphs on family photography DQGORYHSKRWRJUDSKVZKRVHFLUFXODWLRQDQGFRQVHUYDWLRQLQDOEXPVDUHYHU\VLPLODUWR (XUR$PHULFDQSUDFWLFHVFKDSWHURQWKHZD\SKRWRJUDSK\KDVOHGWRDQµLQFUHDVLQJ individualization of memory’ compared to collective modes of telling the past (chapter DQGRQWKHDUWLFXODWLRQEHWZHHQSKRWRJUDSKVDQGRWKHUµSURFHVVXDOPRQXPHQWV¶VXFK DVVNXOOVKULQHVS

Apart from being a detailed ethnographic account of the role of photographs in WKHOLYHVRI5RYLDQDSHRSOH7KH(FKRRI7KLQJV is a highly valuable contribution to the VWXG\RIYHUQDFXODUSKRWRJUDSK\ZKLFKGXHWRVFKRODUVVXFKDV*HRIIUH\%DWFKHQKDV become so central to the history of photography. Its reading can thus be recommended to all those interested in the relations between photography and anthropology and in the FXUUHQWGHEDWHVRQWKH³QDWXUH´DQG³LGHQWLW\´RISKRWRJUDSK\

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