Representations in photography, a European cultural medium: the photography of Northwest Coast First Peoples in British Columbia, 1858-1890
Date
1999
Authors
Lund, John D.
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Abstract
This thesis is an analysis of European photography of Northwest Coast First Nations Peoples during the later half of the nineteenth century in British Columbia, 1860-1890. It analyses the photographic medium as a European development drawn out of the European realist and scientific positivist approach to the world, and the implications of photography as a technological medium. It looks at how the inherent aspects of photography affected both First Nations Peoples' responses to photography and the photographer, and at photographers' actions within the environment of the photographic medium and their use of the medium as a technological tool. The thesis will critique the predominate theme of analysing the photography of First Nations Peoples on the basis of their depiction of stereotypes in academic and popular literature. The dissemination of the photographs of First Nations Peoples and the Historian's role in that dissemination will also be considered.