"From a real nody, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here": An encounter with a missionary portrait of a precolonial akan court official

Abstract

Following Barthes' striking insights, this essay attempts an encounter with a portrait of an Akan court official on the Gold Coast taken in about 1890. The missionary photographer is given his due in the analysis, but Barthes is taken as urging us to take the signals from the photographed "object" seriously when analyzing portraits, and as having liberated us to use the complex of visual perceptions which people with long experience in a region call up when they encounter someone unknown to them. This train of thought allows us to see the official as a representative of a functioning political community with reforming intentions and an ability to absorb many of the impulses a resident Mission brought into the area. The essay is also a by-product of the effort which has been put into getting the main body of historical photographs in the Basel Mission archive catalogued to a satisfactory degree of local precision, to serve the interest in African History among the Mission's African partners, and the new Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel.