Photographer Romão Pereira and the Creation of a Technoscientific Landscape in Colonial Mozambique (1886-1891)

Abstract

In this paper I analyse the use of photography to create a technoscientific landscape in the colonial context. To do so, I study the case of the images produced by Portuguese photographer Manoel Joaquim Romão Pereira about the then Portuguese colony of Mozambique between 1886 and 1891, which are preserved in the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (Lisbon) and in the Centro Português de Fotografia (Porto). Drawing from the principles that photography is a key instrument in the construction of landscapes and that these are not natural phenomena, but social constructs, I argue that Romão Pereira, by focusing in objects of technical and scientific modernization of the colony, contributed to the construction of an illusory technoscientific landscape in Mozambique, which did not represent faithfully the colonial reality. By doing so, he added to the representation of Portugal as an advanced country with imperial vocation, on the same level as other colonial nations of Europe.

Keywords:
Photography; History of Science and Technology; Colonialism