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Abstract
Africans and Muslims, photography and cultural studies – these are the subjects and objects of this cultural-political intervention combining humanist portrait photography, collaborative ethnography and oral history. The Somali Elders Project is located outside of the academy, in a community-based arts and educational centre in Cardiff, Wales. It is a mode of socially-concerned research, photography and representation in which marginalized voices, images and experiences are brought to the fore – with the subjects’ active participation. This polyvocal essay, combining text, voices and images, reflects on the project and suggests that it might provide a useful model for work in African cultural studies.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Abdihakim Arwo, the principal researcher on the Somali Elders Project; Abdikarim Adan, the Director of the Somali Advice Centre in Cardiff; and Akli Ahmed, the principal researcher during the first year of the project (2001). I want to thank Chris Weedon, Handel Kashope Wright and the anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay. Finally, in particular, I wish to thank all of those who have agreed thus far (June 2005) to be photographed and interviewed: Abdi Adan Mohamed, Adan Abdillahi Hassan, Adan Hirsi Farah, Adan Ibrahim Omar, Adan Samater Yusuf, Ahmed Mohamed Adan, Ahmed Yonis Awaleh, Ahmed Yusuf Hersi, Ali Elmi Shirreh, Ali Hersi Mohamed, Ali Mohamed Ahmed, Elmi Jama Handulleh, Esa Mohamed Omar, Hasan Haji Yusuf, Hassan Ahmed Essa, Hassan Ali Dualleh, Hassan Awad Mohamoud, Hussein Saeed Ali, Hussein Ismael Abdi, Ibrahim Ahmed Hassan, Ibrahim Hussein Abby, Ismael Ali Gass, Ismail Adan Mirreh, Ismail Ibrahim Warsama, Jama Omar Hersi, Mahamud Jama Mohamed, Mohamed Abdi Ahmed, Mohamed Adan Abdi, Mohamed Adan Ahmed, Mohamed Ali Mohamed, Mohamed Haji Omar, Mohamed Hashi Halig, Mohamed Jama Guled, Mohamed Madar Booh, Mohamoud Kalinle, Muuze Ismail Argin, Olaad Ismael, Omar Ahmed Abdillahi, Omar Mohamed Hassan, Omar Noor Kibar, Omar Yussuf Essa, Osman Jama Yusuf, Said Adan Yusef, Saeed Ali Abyan, Said Ismail Ali, Yasin Awad Mohamed, Yusuf Ismael Ali and Yusuf Mohammed Jama.
Notes
1. The interview was conducted by Abdihakim Arwo. The original, Somali version of the text is in Jordan (Citation2004, p. 182).
2. Interviews have been conducted with people who remember Somali seamen who came to Cardiff prior to World War I. One of them was Abdi Nuur – known locally by his nickname Abdi Gurri – who I knew well. When he died in 1992, he was approximately 100 years old. There is a picture of him on the acknowledgements page of Jordan (Citation2004).
3. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Somali nation was divided up between three European colonial powers, Britain (which took control of the northern coastal area), France (which took the area now known as Djibouti) and Italy (which controlled the largest territory, in the south), as well as two African states, Kenya and Ethiopia (both of whom took areas adjacent to their own territories). British Somaliland (in the north) gained independence from Britain in June 1960 and immediately joined Italian Somaliland to form the Somali Republic. Nine years later, in October 1969, a military general from the south staged a coup d’état and installed a Marxist, Soviet-style government that reigned until January 1991, when it was ousted from power by a people's revolt. This 22-year reign by the dictator Siyad Barré proved disastrous for the northern republic: it suffered marginalization, suppression and terror. The overthrow of Siyad Barré led to a brief period of respite but this was soon followed by civil war. (For additional background on Somali history, society and culture, see Ahmed and Jordan, Citation2004.)
4. I will leave aside the question of whether ‘The West’ exists. Having lived in Europe for many years, after being born and raised in the US, I know that divisions in Europe are as great as the unity and that, culturally and politically, the US is very different from the rest of us.
5. The term ‘Third Space’ is appropriated from Homi Bhabha (Citation1994).
6. In recent years, the meaning of the term ‘diaspora’ has become diluted losing its connotations of forced exile. For a useful discussion of the origins of the term and its appropriations in the nineteenth century (by African American intellectuals) and in the twentieth century (especially by Africanists seeking a global perspective), see Drake (Citation1982).
7. Virtually all Somalis have nicknames, which are used by other Somalis who know them. Said Ismail Ali's nickname is ‘Said Shuqule’. Since the nickname is the only name I knew until 3 years after I took this picture, I continue to use it here.
8. Consider, for example, that many Somalis, living in the UK, can proudly recount 20 or more generations of their family history. The average Black American, to take an obvious comparative case, would be lucky to know more than a few generations of family history.
9. What I am calling here ‘The Somali Elders Project’ is a part of a larger project of research, exhibitions, publications and education funded by a ‘Connecting Communities’ grant from the Home Office.
10. I am thinking here of photographs such as Diane Arbus’ portraits of mentally ill and other marginal characters. For an overview of Arbus’ work, the cultural politics of which contrasts greatly with my own, see Arbus (Citation2003).
11. As I write this, I am involved with another portraiture a project at Butetown History & Arts Centre. That project uses the medium of oil painting to produce representations of ordinary, working-class people – i.e. people who are very rarely the subjects of such a serious medium. The painter is Mohamed Hamza, a Sudanese refugee, whose favourite artist is Rembrandt (see www.bhac.org).
12. That is, I sought to produce images such as those produced by John Jonas Green (Citation1999) or Xiao Hui Wang (2001).
13. The master of contextualized portraiture is Arnold Newman. He meticulously photographs his subjects in spaces and with objects that convey some sense of who they are: e.g. Igor Stravinsky at a grand piano, Jackson Pollock behind a table full of paint tins and brushes, etc. (see Brookman Citation2000).
14. I could simply offer the following as an explanation: I did not choose the subjects (which is true) and Somali society is sexist (which is also true), but I do not feel that that would be an adequate response.
15. I did not time any of the portrait sessions, but I suspect that most of them lasted between 5 and 20 minutes. Because Saeed Ali Abyan only adopted one pose, I only took five shots of him.
16. In technical terms their work is, of course, superior to mine. My point is that the ethical stance that underlies my photographic practice is similar to theirs.
17. The polyvocality initially extended to the voices of the Somali elders in this text: i.e. the extracts from their interviews were presented in the language in which they were spoken as well as in English translation. For reasons of space, I have only included the translations in this essay. Jordan (2004), however, is a fully bilingual text.
