Photography and Latin American Ruins

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2170277
AutoresJ Scorer (0000-0002-9728-9060, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume26
Fascículo2
Páginas141-164
Data de publicação2017-04-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Latin American Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1356-9325 • E-ISSN: 1469-9575
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13569325.2017.1309316
OpenAlexW2582433291
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas36

Ever since the nineteenth century photographers have regularly turned to Latin American ruins to express a diverse range of scientific, colonial, aesthetic and spiritual desires. This article looks at photographs of Latin American ruins from the nineteenth century through several archaeological expeditions in Central and South America over the course of the twentieth century. Focusing in particular on photographs of ruins that include human subjects, I argue that the human-material interactions evident in these images undermine the traditional view of a split between the archaeological subject and the material object, serving as a reminder of the political actuality of ‘classical’ ruins, sites that have sometimes been left out of the West’s contemporary fascination with the dark underbelly of modernity. Acknowledging that such politics is by no means always innocent, sometimes reflecting as it does the embedded power relations of neo-colonial desires, I argue nonetheless that ancient ruins in Latin America continue to be spaces around which social relations can be formed, not least through humour and pleasure

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Colonialism · Latin Americans · Modernity · Object (grammar · Pleasure · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Subject (documents · Archaeological Research and Protection · History · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture