Indigenous Modernities: Missionary Photography and Photographic Gaps in Nauru

Abstract

This essay examines a set of photographs created by Philip Delaporte, a German-American missionary working for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on the island of Nauru in the early 20th century. At the time Nauru was a German colony, but the phosphate industry had brought a varied group of settlers and influences that added to a pre-existing series of inter-Pacific connections. The photographs were produced just prior to the full realization of the mining industry and the widespread ecological destruction it brought to the island. In many ways, Delaporte’s photographs are typical, recording the mission’s various projects and successes. However, Delaporte’s unique position as an ambiguous colonial figure on the eve of World War I, and Nauru’s own complex relationship with modernity, invite alternate readings of these images. Outside of Delaporte’s original intention, the photographs record other experiences: the workings of Indigenous modernity in the midst of a place increasingly subject to the inflows of global, colonial capital.

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