About

About this blog

The idea for this blog came after a talk with Prof. Mulokozi of the University of Dar es Salaam. He once asked me if I have some pictures of Kahigi of Kianja, an African chief, who was in power in Uhaya during German colonial rule. Prof. Mulokozi told me that he knows some of the chief's descendents, who are keen to have some historical pictures of his famous ancestor. I then provided him with what I had about Kahigi. Nevertheless, I was left with an uneasiness arising from the fact that on my computer are hundreds of other pictures which I collected during my research on the history of East Africa. There these pictures have no immediate use, I sometimes use them for the illustration of papers. They have, however, a certain value for Africans, who are interested in the history of their region or their families. As researchers, I think, we have to give something back to those societies and individuals, who support us in many ways during our research on the continent. These are not only our colleagues at the universities, but also the people we interview, who provide us with food and housing, or those, who are open to talk with us. This blog tries to this do this by opening my collections to all people who are interested in them.

The visual history of Africa, notably for the 19^th century, is still an under-researched topic. Although we had a certain turn towards photographs in recent years, many archives are not fully discovered, many even not really known. If you ever came to an archive and ask for photographs, you will, if you are in luck and they have some, often be confronted  with collections of photographs that are not sorted or indexed. Many photographs are lacking any substantial information, when and where the picture was taken, by whom and what and who is on these pictures. This is also the case for many pictures I have in my collection. I hope by posting these pictures that people help me to get more information to contextualize these photographs.

This collections of photographs comes mostly from German sources. Some are from archives, many are from books.

About the author

Doing history of Africa for more than 20 years, I increasingly enjoy blogging as a means to reach a wider public for the topic of my research. I published two books on German colonial rule in Eastern Africa and some 30 articles.