From the Studio to the Front-line: The Emergence, Development, and Impact of Asian Photographers in Colonial and Independent East Africa

The critical study of photography in East Africa is particularly limited when compared to other regions (Haney 2010, Landau and Kaspin 2002). The key ongoing contribution made by photographers of Asian descent, who are part of the South Asian diaspora that arrived in East Africa from the early nineteenth century onwards,¹ has been especially under-studied. Links between Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and East Africa have existed via Indian Ocean trade networks for at least two millennia (Delf 1963:1–4, Ghai and Ghai 1970:1–14, Gregory 1993:9–42, Hourani and Carswell 1995). This article seeks to go beyond what Enwezor and Zaya (cited in Haney 2010:6–12) describe as “the visual fictions of the African continent” and offer some accounts of photographers of Asian descent that provide compelling counternarratives. By presenting the works and biographies of photographers of Asian diasporas in East Africa, I endeavor...