Colonialism and its Regimes of Visibility: Edgard Imbert’s Views of the French Empire

Abstract

This article explores some of the mechanisms underlying the photographic visualisations of the French Empire between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, This study focuses in particular on Edgard Imbert’s photographic work, a collection of albums, glass plates, and loose photographs held at the Etablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense in Ivry, Franc. Imbert was one of the most prolific photographers of French colonisation in Madagascar and Indochina. The thousands of negatives he made offer a unique perspective on the visual economies of French expansionism in these territories. Through a thorough analysis of what Imbert kept to himself, showed to his family circle, or published with a view to propagandise French colonialism in Asia and Africa, this work shows how careful historians should be in their analyses of colonial-era photographs. Those who were most involved in fashioning the colonial imaginary effectively constructed a visual repertoire to promote their vision, and not just for their contemporaries but also for posterity. A large part of the colonial images that circulate more than a century later are drawn for these registers of self-representation. Leading figures of French colonialism, such as Hubert Lyautey and Joseph Gallieni, were very familiar with the structure of the colonial archive in construction. They anticipated which effect the photographic elaboration of the colonies would have in the long term. The agency of French archives generally favoured the conservation of albums and views that are the direct inheritors from this colonial self-fashioning. Such an archival effect tends to distort heavily the repertoire of French colonial imagery. Imbert’s collection therefore offers a rare insight on the various regimes of in/visibility of French colonial activities in the early twentieth century and their subsequent curatorial itineraries.

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