Enticed to settle elsewhere
Magic lantern slides and the transnational creation of European colonial citizens
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10225752 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Margriet Van Der Waal (0000-0001-7889-0814, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; University of Groningen, The Netherlands, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 289-313 |
| Publication date | 2022-09-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of European Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-2441 • E-ISSN: 1740-2379 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00472441221115611 |
| OpenAlex | W4297394844 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 42 |
During the early twentieth century, people across Europe were enticed by magic lantern slide shows about a wide range of topics and issues. This contribution examines magic lantern images depicting South Africa and conveyed to Dutch viewers. How did the slides shape an imaginary both of South Africa and of the viewers themselves? My analysis shows that the slides not only transmitted information about South Africa – its built infrastructure, nature, population and economic sectors (in particular, the agricultural sector) – but also conveyed a narrative that established specific social subjects hierarchized on the basis of race, ethnicity and class. A critical engagement with the imaginary carried across by this material heritage helps us to understand how it promoted a colonial, social subjectivity with which potential emigrants could identify: a rights-bearing, European citizen with the right to move to South Africa and establish a new life there. Prior to any actual emigration, then, subjects were inscribed in a history of structural and physical violence, racism, alleged White superiority, social injustices and social inequality
Archaeology · Colonialism · Emigration · Lantern · MAGIC (telescope · Population · Racism · Sociology · Subjectivity · The Imaginary · African history and culture studies · Australian History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Psychology · South African History and Culture
The seed is mine
The Afrikaners
The African Photographic Archive
Refiguring the Archive
Ambivalent
The Settlers of South Africa
Migration and National Identity in South Africa, 1860–2010
War of Words
Modern Social Imaginaries
Black citizenship, Afropolitan critiques
Family ties? Afrikaner nationalism, pan-Netherlandic nationalism and neo-Calvinist “Christian nationalism”
Re-thinking agricultural development in South Africa
Beyond and with the object
Invisisbility and selectivity. Introduction to the special issue on Dutch overseas migration in the nineteenth and twentieth century
Paradoxes of curating colonial memory
Archival encounters
Shifting Identifications in Dutch-South African Migration Policies (1910–1961)
Dissonant heritage
Screen Culture and the Social Question 1880–1914
Dockside Reading
A New Dutch Imperial History
Colonial Nationalism, The Milner Kindergarten and the Rise of 'South Africanism', 1902-101
Sight-Seeing in School
In search of African history
Thwarted Exodus Postwar Overseas Migration from the Netherlands
Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1
The colonial archival imaginaire at home
The Crying Child
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |