Paul T.W. Baxter: Photographing the Other-Than-Human

ABSTRACT

This article revisits the work of the late anthropologist, Paul T.W. Baxter, re-reading his photographs and writing on pastoralism in northern Kenya through the prism of contemporary interest in anthropology in the ‘other-than-human’. It contextualises Baxter’s work within a wider school of anthropology of pastoralism, and his photography within wider photographic practice in anthropology and in the region of Kenya where he worked in the 1950s. We argue that his work – and that of others of the structural-functionalist era – offers rich detail that can be mined by later anthropologists with different theoretical interests and influences. In particular, his photographs speak – albeit partially – to a wider intertwining of human and animal lives in northern Kenya of the 1950s beyond his own focus on pastoralist livelihoods, an intertwining that resonates with current work on human–animal sociality.

KEYWORDS:

• Other-than human
• photography
• pastoralism
• northern Kenya
• Paul Baxter

Acknowledgements

We thank Marianne Elisabeth Lien and David Turton for their careful reading and comments at different stages of our project. Also, we thank the Pitt Rivers Museum for granting access to the ethnographic photographs of Paul Baxter. Many thanks too to the kindness Pat Baxter has shown us over the years, and the many conversations that have informed the above. Finally, we acknowledge the support of the institutions with which are affiliated: Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol (Carrier); Area Studies, University of Oxford (O’Leary); and Department of Anthropology, University of Iceland (Palsson).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 While we use the older spelling ‘Borana’, the one more commonly used by people of this ethnicity in Kenya, it is often spelled by Oromo speakers as ‘Boorana’ using their Qubee alphabet system.

2 The Baxter Collection can be viewed online through the Pitt Rivers Museum website: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/databases (accessed June 2016).

3 Paul was Michael’s supervisor for his doctorate. They and their wives were life-long friends. Neil, who grew up in Manchester, was in regular contact with Paul, who was his PhD thesis examiner, and he arranged for Paul’s photographs to be curated at Oxford. Gisli was supervised by Paul for his MA degree and remained in touch with him for many years. All of us kept receiving his famous brief informative notes long after we finished our studies. (As friends of Paul we are most comfortable using his first name.)

4 While extending sociality beyond the human has its virtues, it has its limits too. ‘Too often’, as Bjørkdahl and Druglitrø argue (2016: 4), ‘discussions of “human-animal relations” are allowed to slip into the abstract, as if such relations had no placement in physical space, and no connection to the things one finds in such spaces’.

5 This article is also based on our many conversations over the decades with Paul (including interviews on his photography for Carrier and Quaintance 2012), and with his wife Pat, who maintains a formidable memory of their days in northern Kenya in the early 1950s.

6 Beyond the academy, he was also held in high regard by Oromo for highlighting their political plight in Ethiopia.

7 Paul mainly worked among the Borana of Marsabit, but also spent some time (a little over seven weeks according to his thesis [1954: 8]) among Gabra camel herders further to the north, and a shorter visit to the Orma living around the Tana River near Garissa. Paul at the time of his DPhil research considered other ethnicities of the region – Gabra, Sakuye and Watta – as ‘junior tribes’ of the Borana, though nowadays they are considered separate. On the nuances of identity in the region, see Schlee 1989.

8 Paul was fond of saying how it is good ethnography rather than theory that stands the test of time. He also enjoyed telling an anecdote of Talcott Parsons giving a seminar at Oxford and being teased by Evans-Pritchard for his impenetrable language, an anecdote that spoke of his suspicion of ‘theory’ and its jargon.

9 Galla was the term then commonly used by outsiders in reference to Oromo-speaking people. It is seen as pejorative and is no longer used.

10 See Kuper 1973: 167–168.

11 See Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980: 15–16.

12 This image can be seen on the Pitt Rivers catalogue (PRM 2008.2.2.118) and is printed in Baxter 1986.

13 For details of O'Leary's research amongst the Gabra, see O'Leary 1994.