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One. Oversight: The Ordering of Slavery
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Nicholas MirzoeffSearch for this author in:
The deployment of visuality and visual technologies as a Western social technique for ordering was decisively shaped by the experience of planta-tion slavery in the Americas, forming the plantation complex of visuality.1 If it has often been claimed that modernity was the product of slavery, there has been insufficient attention to the ways in which the modern “ways of seeing” also emerged from this nexus.2 What one might call the received genealogy of modern visual culture begins with the major change in the mid- seventeenth century in the European division of the sensible. It cre-ated what Foucault called “the division, so evident to us, between what we see, what others have observed and handed down, and what others imag-ine or naïvely believe, the great tripartition into Observation, Document, and Fable.”3 In this new formation, there was a gap between things and words, a gap that could be crossed by seeing, a form of seeing that would dictate what it was possible to say. As the seeing preceded the naming, that which Foucault called the “nomination of the visible” (132) was the central prac-tice. He emphasized that this was not a question of people suddenly learn-ing to look harder or more closely, but a new set of priorities attached to sensory perception. Taste and smell became less important, now being understood as imprecise, hearsay was simply excluded, while touch was limited to a series of binary distinctions, such as that between rough and oneOversightThe Ordering of Slavery
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The deployment of visuality and visual technologies as a Western social technique for ordering was decisively shaped by the experience of planta-tion slavery in the Americas, forming the plantation complex of visuality.1 If it has often been claimed that modernity was the product of slavery, there has been insufficient attention to the ways in which the modern “ways of seeing” also emerged from this nexus.2 What one might call the received genealogy of modern visual culture begins with the major change in the mid- seventeenth century in the European division of the sensible. It cre-ated what Foucault called “the division, so evident to us, between what we see, what others have observed and handed down, and what others imag-ine or naïvely believe, the great tripartition into Observation, Document, and Fable.”3 In this new formation, there was a gap between things and words, a gap that could be crossed by seeing, a form of seeing that would dictate what it was possible to say. As the seeing preceded the naming, that which Foucault called the “nomination of the visible” (132) was the central prac-tice. He emphasized that this was not a question of people suddenly learn-ing to look harder or more closely, but a new set of priorities attached to sensory perception. Taste and smell became less important, now being understood as imprecise, hearsay was simply excluded, while touch was limited to a series of binary distinctions, such as that between rough and oneOversightThe Ordering of Slavery
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Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents vii
- List of Illustrations ix
- Preface. Ineluctable Visualities xiii
- Acknowledgments xvii
- Introduction. The Right to Look, or, How to Think With and Against Visuality 1
- Visualizing Visuality 35
- One. Oversight: The Ordering of Slavery 48
- Two. The Modern Imaginary: Antislavery Revolutions and the Right to Existence 77
- Puerto Rican Counterpoint I 117
- Three. Visuality: Authority and War 123
- Four. Abolition Realism: Reality, Realisms, and Revolution 155
- Puerto Rican Counterpoint II 188
- Five. Imperial Visuality and Countervisuality, Ancient and Modern 196
- Six. Antifascist Neorealisms: North- South and the Permanent Battle for Algiers 232
- Mexican- Spanish Counterpoint 271
- Seven. Global Counterinsurgency and the Crisis of Visuality 277
- Notes 311
- Bibliography 343
- Index 373
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Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents vii
- List of Illustrations ix
- Preface. Ineluctable Visualities xiii
- Acknowledgments xvii
- Introduction. The Right to Look, or, How to Think With and Against Visuality 1
- Visualizing Visuality 35
- One. Oversight: The Ordering of Slavery 48
- Two. The Modern Imaginary: Antislavery Revolutions and the Right to Existence 77
- Puerto Rican Counterpoint I 117
- Three. Visuality: Authority and War 123
- Four. Abolition Realism: Reality, Realisms, and Revolution 155
- Puerto Rican Counterpoint II 188
- Five. Imperial Visuality and Countervisuality, Ancient and Modern 196
- Six. Antifascist Neorealisms: North- South and the Permanent Battle for Algiers 232
- Mexican- Spanish Counterpoint 271
- Seven. Global Counterinsurgency and the Crisis of Visuality 277
- Notes 311
- Bibliography 343
- Index 373
