Navajoand photography
Subtitle: a critical history of the representation of an American people
By: James C. Faris.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Albuquerque
Language: eng
Number of pages: 392
Subjects: Navajo Indians -- Pictorial works.; Photography in ethnology -- Southwest, New -- History.
Description: This thorough critical examination of photographic practices calls attention to the inability of most photography to communicate the lived experiences of native people or their history. Faris's survey, beginning with the earliest photographs of Navajos in captivity at the Bosque Redondo and including the most recent glossy picture books and calendars, points up the western assumptions that have always governed photographic representation of Navajo people.

Drawing on exhaustive archival research to unearth rarely published photographs as well as unpublished photographs by well-known photographers, Faris documents Navajo resistance to the West's view (and viewfinder) and persistent attempts to overcome or dismiss such resistance. He challenges the photographic history of the Navajo people as presented by photographers, historians, and anthropologists, and explores the social and legal conditions that make such photography possible.

Confronting many readers' nostalgic expectations, Navajo and Photography will appeal to all those with an interest in the juxtaposition of cultures.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 369-385) and index.
Table of contents: title: Contents: The gaze of Western Humanism : photography as enterprise : Navajo, photography, anthropology, Navajo history; title: The registers of photography of Navajo : method as political critique : valencesin the photography of Navajo; title: A Historical sketch of nineteenth-century photography of Navajo : the first photographers : photographers, 1870-1900; title: The vanishing race: Edward S. Curtis; title: Photography of Navajo to mid-century: saturatedfields of visibility : the settling of Tropes: the first two decades:photography of Navajo after 1920 : bureaucrats, postal cards, and color slides; title: The endearing Navajo: Laura Gilpin; title: Selling Navajo images: contemporary picture books and photographic modernism; title: Navajo photographers; title: Conclusions.