DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2024.2.6| FRAUWALLNER: IN//OUT OF FRAME_ INSIGHTOUT 2(2024) 35ting or highlighting cultural differences, often toreinforce cultural identity through a contrast withthe“other”.25the colony. Their bodies are employed to spark recognition of the“other” among an imperial-mindedEuropean audience.The photograph captionedHaus eines HereroHäuptlings[House of a Herero Chief] provides aninteresting example of how subtly the colonial gazecan function through the choice of clothing andspatial positioning.26The photograph(fig.4) depictstwo groups of women posing for the camera in frontof two small buildings. The group of seven womenon the left are wearing dresses reminiscent of European fashion in the mid-nineteenth century, butthey are made of fabrics with patterns common tothe region. Meanwhile, the group on the right aredressed in local fashion consisting of theonehekeandoruhira(back and front skirt-like panels whichare tied around the waist, reaching to the knees),theorupera(a cloak tied over the shoulders, reaching to the knees, covering the back of the body)and anekori(in this case a head covering with athree-pointed top). All these elements were madefrom sheepskin rubbed withotjize(a paste of redochre and fat).27The staging of this image is nocoincidence; it is intended to show a white audience the difference between the precolonial and thecolonial – or to put it more bluntly: to make clearthe difference between“uncivilised” and“civilised”people. Notably, the same four-element dress isalso worn by the woman photographed forHererofrau in Kriegsschmuck(fig. 1). However, in her case,the meaning ascribed to her attire reaches beyondshowcasing“tradition” and takes on a propagandistic claim marking her as a“warrior”.In photographs like these, Black women are madehighly visible according to a colonial imagining of thevisual distinction between the future and the past ofConclusionPhotographs of Herero women ascribedthem the role of warriors, which fit neatlyinto the image perpetuated by German warpropaganda that women were active participants in battle.In this context, Herero women were made hyper-visible. Simultaneously, Herero women were made invisible in the photographs taken to document the construction of the Otavi railway. Here, they were erasedfrom image and text, despite them performing strenuous physical work as forced labourers.The case of Herero women performing forced labour as prisoners of war challenges the notion of labour, infrastructure, and war as exclusively male domains, necessitating a re-examination of these“malespaces”. While the images analysed for this articledo hint at a gendered difference in representationsof colonised bodies by the means of clothing, a morein-depth analysis of a larger number of images is required to draw any meaningful conclusions about theparticular ways in which different genders are represented in colonial photography.Little if anything is known about the incentives or directions given to anyone involved – whether photographer or photographed – which makes the production process all the more obscure. However, to pickup on the observation by Muthien and Bam28referenced at the beginning, the fact that indigenous women are often not tangible is due to the contempo25V. Rovine,„Colonialism’s Clothing: Africa, France, and the Deployment of Fashion“,Design,25(2009), 44–61: 44–45.26TMW, Archiv für österr. Eisenbahngeschichte, EA-002910-31, Leutnant Nath, photo album(c. 1904–1908), n.p.27Hendrickson,Historical idioms,304(see n. 2428Muthien and Bam,Rethinking Africa(see n. 4).
