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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The Iconography of African Migrants: Medial Representations
| Panel |
38. African Migrations and Exiles in Germany - Representations and Creative Responses in Literature and Media
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| Paper ID | 559 |
| Author(s) |
Breitinger, Eckhard
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | In this paper I will present a reading of the visual representation of African migrants in Germany from the early 18th century to the present. In a selection of images from the relevant media (sculptures & paintings for 18th C., newspaper drawings for 19th C. and TV documentaries for 20th C.) specific patterns of perception and visual representation will be interpreted in their various historical contexts. The main focus of attention will be placed on the strategies of iconographic “integration” as in the baroque costuming of 18th C migrants on the one hand and the extremes of visual “othering” in the reaction to the dance performances of the Dahomean Amazons in Munich in 1892 on the other. Documentaries on African and Afro-German actors in German films and on German stages and on a “Black chimney sweep” illustrate the strained gaze of the camera which tries to establish the normality of a professional life and yet maintains the residues of the exotic gaze.
Stereotyping in TV soaps and serials (e.g. the “Black deputy detective” in crime serials) will be looked at as a concise illustration of yet another paradigm of visualising African migrants.
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