Unfixed

Jennifer Bajorek is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Visual Studies at Hampshire College and Research Associate in the VIAD Research Centre, in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. She is also author of Counterfeit Capital: Poetic Labor and Revolutionary Irony.

“With intimate ethnography, urgent activism, and an intriguing mix of methodological and theoretical tools, Jennifer Bajorek presents a compelling set of arguments about photography's critical role in producing new publics with their own forms of political imagination and civic consciousness. Her book is an absolute pleasure to read and leaves readers with tantalizing possibilities for future scholarship in other sites at the reaches of the French colonial sphere.” - Elizabeth Harney, coeditor of (Mapping Modernisms: Art, Indigeneity, Colonialism) “Jennifer Bajorek offers a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the transformative power of photography all while telling a compelling story packed with detail and brio. Beautifully written, highly original, and built around a core of remarkable images, Unfixed is unquestionably a major contribution.” - Christopher Pinney, author of (Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs) “Unfixed…moves beyond topics that are by now familiar, even canonical. Grounded in rigorous theoretical inquiry and years of in-depth research in the major cities of Senegal and Benin, the book deftly shifts the field toward new terrain. While past scholarship has been concerned with demarcating the Africanity of photography and has focused on issues of identity formation, portraiture, and the colonial gaze, Bajorek instead challenges us to pay attention to photography’s political significance to Africans.”- Prita Meier (CAA Reviews) “Bajorek’s approach, observations, and suggestions make Unfixed an insightful and illuminating read-not only for researchers of Black or African Studies, but for anyone concerned with vernacular photography.” - Daniela Yvonne Baumann (Camera Austria International) “[Unfixed] contributes to the dismantling of the notion of a monolithic canon of photography history.... Unfixed is a richly layered book that explores a wide variety of concepts, raising thought-provoking questions along the way.” - Jane Darcovich (ARLIS/NA) “Jennifer Bajorek’s book is a remarkable achievement; the product of an inquiry that began in 1999 and grew through seven years of field work in Senegal and Benin, Unfixed unearths the extraordinary and largely uncharted territory of photography’s role in what she describes as the ‘decolonial imagination’ of Francophone West Africa.” - Jordan Troeller (History of Photography) “Jennifer Bajorek’s Unfixed convincingly and eloquently discusses the role that photography played in fostering decolonial imagination among francophone west Africans. . . . [It is] an engaging and accessible read, a rich resource for scholars and students, and a welcome addition to scholarly works on African photography and decolonization.” - Haythem Guesmi (Africa Today)

• List of Illustrations viiA Note on Geography, Spelling, and Language  xiiiPreface  xviiAcknowledgments  xixIntroduction. At Least Two Histories of Liberation  1Part I. What Makes a Popular Photography?1. Ça bousculait! (It Was Happening!)  412. Wild Circulation: Photography as Urban Media  833. Decolonizing Print Culture: The Example of Bingo  117Part II. Republic of Images4. Africanizing Political Photography  1635. The Pleasures of State-Sponsored Photography  2036. African Futures, Lost and Found  240Notes  265Bibliography  307Index 319