To Be Nsala's Daughter: Decomposing the Colonial Gaze

by Chérie N. Rivers

Overview

In To Be Nsala’s Daughter, Chérie N. Rivers shows how colonial systems of normalized violence condition the way we see and, through collaboration with contemporary Congolese artists, imagines ways we might learn to see differently. Rivers focuses on a photograph of a Congolese man, Nsala, looking at the disembodied hand and foot of his daughter, which were removed as punishment for his failure to deliver the requisite amount of rubber in King Léopold’s Congo. This photograph, taken by British missionary Alice Seeley Harris, featured prominently in abolitionist campaigns to end colonial atrocities in Central Africa in the early twentieth century. But in addition to exposing the visible violence of colonialism, Rivers argues, this photograph also exposes the invisible—and continued—violence of the colonial gaze. With a poetic, personal collage of stories and images, To Be Nsala’s Daughter traces the past and present of the colonial gaze both in Congo and in the author’s lived experience as a mixed-race Black woman in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478023722
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	12/16/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	126 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Chérie N. Rivers is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, author of Necessary Noise: Music, Film, and Charitable Imperialism in the East of Congo, and coeditor of The Art of Emergency: Aesthetics and Aid in African Crises.

Table of Contents

Preface  xvi
1. Elegy of Nsala  1
2. To See Nsala's Daughter  3
3. To Decompose  9
4. To Replicate  29
5. To Contradict  47
6. To Create  65
7. To Love Nsala's Daughter  81
Gratitude  89
Notes  93
Bibliography  99
Index  101
Illustration Credits  105
 

What People are Saying About This

The Repeating Body: Slavery’s Visual Resonance in the Contemporary - Kimberly Juanita Brown

“In this ambitious investigation into the colonial archive, Chérie N. Rivers offers a meditation on the meaning of archive, its violences and reproductions, and a way to contemplate the relationship between the history of empire and the history of photographic reproduction. An elegantly circuitous and pointedly flowing construction of self and other that any interaction with empire necessitates, To Be Nsala’s Daughter illustrates the stakes of rendering yourself visible, even if it is in the service of reclaiming histories lost, stolen, or submerged.”

Afrotopia - Felwine Sarr

“The originality in Chérie N. Rivers’s approach lies in her excavation of the intangible systems of control that coloniality leaves behind through the subjectivity of individuals. She focuses on the fabric of consent to alienation and violence while questioning how perceptions are conditioned to hide the violence that occurs in plain sight. By restoring the ability to see and avoiding the reproduction of colonial structures in our practices, subjectivities, and imaginaries, Rivers refuses to replicate colonial hegemonies of knowing. The meanings she seeks from language are maps of possibilities.”

Editorial Reviews

"To Be Nsala’s Daughter is an impressive feat of scholarship, and yet reflects true humility on the part of its creator, as it recognizes that grappling with the cascades, ruptures, and fault lines of cultural geography are always a work in progress. The book . . . makes an excellent companion piece for undergraduate courses on imperialism, African and African American history, and visual culture. In its nuanced, sophisticated assessments of race, systemic violence, and frames of knowledge, the book is a perfect choice for instructors seeking to meaningfully engage with issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, particularly when a transnational approach is desired or required."

The AAG Review of Books - Robert A. Saunders