Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HRPOE (Histories of Reception of Photography in the Ottoman Empire)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-08-31
The “Histories of Reception of Photography in the Ottoman Empire (HRPOE)” action set out to provide the first in-depth analysis of how the photographic medium, emerging from a different epistemological and cultural context, was understood by Armenian and Turkish citizens of the Ottoman Empire. By engaging with the publications on photography of Armenian and Turkish citizens in a contextual and comparative manner, it aimed to explore the diverse meanings and uses attributed to the medium in the context of Ottoman modernisation and Westernisation. In this way, it aimed to create an original historical account of the reception of photography in the context of Ottoman modernisation and Westernisation. It also aimed to disclose the heterogeneity of knowledge structures involved in the reception of photography in the Ottoman Empire and to bring together the expertise of different disciplines in the analysis of this heterogeneity. Finally, the project aimed to build an open access database for its datasets with the aim of bringing the materials to the attention of researchers and contributing to Ottoman Armenian and Turkish cultural heritages.
The key milestones of the project were the completion of the secondary literature review, the completion of journal index research, the collection of the dataset through archival research, the analysis of the data, the organisation of workshops, the writing of research articles and the presentation of the research at conferences. The project resulted in several academic and non-academic deliverables. I wrote two research articles, one of which has been published and the other is pending for publication in early 2025; I presented my findings at two academic gatherings; I was invited to give public talks on four different occasions; I co-organised two workshops and I created an open access database from the dataset of my research. The project findings also resulted in a book proposal to be submitted to publishers.
The project aimed to advance the-state-of-the-art through the novelty of its research question, data set and methods. In terms of the research question, it shifted the focus from visual representation to reception, and instead of focusing on what the Ottomans captured with their cameras or how they became subjects of photography under the Western orientalist gaze or state’s surveillance, it explored how different imperial groups grasped the photographic medium in the context of cultural and epistemic interactions between the Ottoman Empire and the West. In terms of data, the project uncovered and explored previously unstudied materials consisting of publications on photography written by Armenians and Turks. In terms of methodology, it developed a cultural-historical approach to the study of the history of photography in the Ottoman Empire and adopted a contextual and comparative approach in analysing each group's attitude towards photography against the background of their relationship with Ottoman modernisation and the West. In doing so, it also revealed previously unexplored links between the Ottoman Empire and the West through photographic practices. It also brought the expertise of different disciplines to bear on the analysis of the subject. The project also challenged the prevailing tendency in the historiography of Ottoman photography, as well as in Ottoman studies in general, to assume a uniform imperial experience across different ethnic groups, reducing the Ottoman experience to that of Muslim Turks and ignoring the substantial roles played by non-Muslim imperial subjects. In this way, the project highlighted how the label Ottoman, in the context of the history of photography, represents an amalgamation of a variety of experiences.