Seite 386 [386]
OCR
Construction of Otherness: The Establishment of Studio Photography in Sarajevo Muslim woman in her nonvisibility and seemingly missing individuality represented Otherness par excellence and was considered THE symbol for Otherness. Moreover, souvenir cards sometimes depicted another attribute, namely, seductiveness, which is not diametrically opposed to nonvisibility. This suggests that with regard to the depiction of Muslim women, a far more significant element of Orientalism than Balkanism is apparent. Still, many questions arise from the depictions. The investigated material does not give information about Muslim women in studio photography made for private purposes. Accessing private collections would be essential for making conclusions about the self-representations of these women. For Bosnia and Herzegovina, the interplay between photography and politics has to be particularly analyzed due to its history of occupation. The concept of Bosnjastvo (Bosnianism) does not strengthen religion or favor any religious group. This is very much in contrast to the highlighting of the Muslim population in commercial pictures. A special focus has to be placed on the theoretical frameworks of Balkanism and Orientalism too. It needs to be more carefully elaborated whether Balkanism can be regarded as a variation of Orientalism or in contrast to Orientalism, with different connotations. However, I hope I was able to suggest that visual material may confirm or question written sources and descriptive knowledge. The conclusiveness of the image has to be critically analyzed. Can an image ever be taken as a descriptive piece of evidence that provides statements about social realities? With regard to foreign perceptions of the Sarajevans in commercial pictures, the discourses on the population, the essentialization and alterization of the inhabitants, seem to be evident. These commercial photographs should be a priori read as normative sources that provide immanent information about how it “should” be but not how reality is. With regard to the validity of selfrepresentations in studio portraits, the significance of the material seems to be difficult to evaluate. In relation to other European cities with Ottoman heritage, the number of studio photographs is low. In addition, only a very specific segment of society was presented in studio photography in the late nineteenth century, and photography was an elitist phenomenon of urban dwellers. This means also for Sarajevo that the majority of the population was not represented in private photography. To exaggerate, this also implies that studio photography not only gives us information about the portrayed elites, but, dealing with the subject itself also constitutes an elite approach to history, which excludes the awareness of large portions of the population. Due to the lack of sources for describing social reality at large, the power relations that are reflected in the visual perception of the Sarajevans are persisting through the research process over time. To conclude with Gayatri Spivak: “The subaltern cannot speak” (Spivak 1988: 104). And with respect to the visual: The subaltern cannot be seen. 383
