All photography takes place somewhere, but only some photography makes that place the focal point. “Through These Eyes: Views of the Continent” is a special photojournalism edition of Siyabonana that elicits images and reflective essays regarding photos of the continent of Africa. This special edition of the journal calls for scholarship that uses photography as a medium in conjunction with short personal reflections to document, transform, and expand our imaginings and visualization of the African continent.  By investigating photography’s relation to place, this issue explores photography as a medium and tool for placemaking that shapes our understanding of the physical, social, and cultural landscapes of the continent. We seek to loosen categories such as “photojournalism,” or “snapshot,” in favor of broader considerations about the multiple ways photographs function. The goal of the conversation is to expand histories; explore new methodologies; identify repositories; and build scholarly community.

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This special edition welcomes proposals from all disciplines with photographs of and reflections on the African world that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes: 

• Historical representations of place;

• Time and temporality in place-based photography;

• Negotiations of myth, fiction, and reality in place-based photography;

• Tensions between site-specific, regional, national, and global representations of place;

• Photographic responses and remediations of places from other media, including film, literature, and video games;

• Interdisciplinary practices and theories in the study of place-based photography; 

• Ethical considerations and responsibilities of photographing place;

• Memory, nostalgia, imagery, and place;

• Place, imagery, and spirituality;

• Gendered spaces and place; and

• (Dis)connections between imagery and space. 

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Special Issue Editor 

Dr. Keisha A. Brown is Associate Professor of History at Tennessee State University in the Department of History, Political Science, Geography, and Africana Studies, and serves on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Africana Studies. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame; earned her doctorate from the University of Southern California; in 2018–2019, she served as postdoctoral fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University; and was a National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Public Intellectual fellow. Dr. Brown is an Asian Studies scholar with a regional focus on East Asia, and specializing in modern Chinese history. Her research centers on Sino-Black relations, and examines networks of difference in China used to understand the “Black foreign other.” In 2020, she co-founded the Black China Caucus, a non-profit organization dedicated to amplifying Black voices in the China space.

Contact the special issue editor for further inquiries and questions:

Dr. Keisha Brown: keishab241@gmail.com