From Congo: newspaper photographs, public images and personal memories

Abstract

Objects, including photographs, offer a significant aid to memory and how people process past events. Family photography and family photograph albums can be important tools for preserving memories and creating shared family narratives. However, some important family events may not be represented in family photographs. In my family, for instance, some of the most significant events that took place are not recorded in traditional family albums, but through images that appeared in newspapers. My grandmother collected an archive of photographs of my family through newspaper clippings. The images document events that took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the postcolonial years immediately following independence. However, whether family photographs in a family album or newspaper photographs in a daily paper, images are cultural artefacts, censored and mediated by dominant social discourses. They will echo popular tropes and reflect the historical, cultural and political influences of the time. Drawing on insights from scholarship on family photography, cultural memory and trauma, this paper offers an analysis of the significance of the personal and the public use of photographs.