Navajo and Photography: A Critical History of the Representation of an American People

James Faris's Navajo and Photography concerns a world that has nearly disappeared: that of the traditional Navajos, the Indian people of the high desert American Southwest. What Faris calls "non-hostile" Navajos became an essential part of the tourist trade following the Indian Wars of the 19th century, and their representation in photographic images was a carefully crafted departure from the realities of reservation life. The Navajos were depicted as proud yet friendly warriors, not as defeated enemies and wards of a conquering state. Those photographs–and Faris's book contains scores of them–were important instruments in the foundation of a "conventional wisdom" about who Indians were and how they lived. As Faris shows in his commentary, the Navajos did not always willingly participate in this mythmaking process, and sometimes subtly subverted it. Even so, history and anthropology books are full of ersatz images of characters such as the famous "Navajo Brigand of the Black Mountain Country." Faris's text is an important contribution to a growing body of criticism of what might be called "the manufacture of The Other."

This thorough critical examination of photographic practices calls attention to the inability of most photography to communicate the lived experiences of native people or their history. Faris's survey, beginning with the earliest photographs of Navajo in captivity at the Bosque Redondo and including the most recent glossy picture books and calendars, points up the Western assumptions that have always governed photographic representation of Navajo people.

Drawing on exhaustive archival research to unearth rarely published photographs as well as unpublished photographs by well-known photographers, Faris documents Navajo resistance to the West's view (and viewfinder) and persistent attempts to overcome or dismiss such resistance. He challenges the photographic history of the Navajo people as presented by photographers, historians, and anthropologists, and explores the social and legal conditions that make such photography possible. Confronting many readers' nostalgic expectations, Navajo and Photography will appeal to all those with an interest in the juxtaposition of cultures and photographic critique.