Introductory Remarks

The digital exhibit "Reframing the Colonial Library: Equatorial Guinea Archives in the Museum" engages with the country's colonial library. Following the approach of Benita Sampedro Vizcaya, the re-evaluation of the colonial library demands “dislocating the traditionally central and privileged role of metropolitan texts and neo-colonial discourses in order to engage, instead, with the cultural and intellectual production of Guinean intellectuals themselves (341).” The project embraces her emphasis on re-locating canonical texts and privileged categories of analysis such as race, capitalism, empire, or nation. This way, the exhibit attempts to reconfigure, appropriate, transform, and transgress the colonial, historical, and linguistic inheritance of which 'the local' is also a conduit, as explained by Sampedro Vizcaya. The revision of the colonial library requires “awareness of the power of those sites, not only in terms of the day-to-day functioning of the empire-colony relationship but also in regard to the epistemic and representational weight they carry in broader cultural and political practices and projects, both colonial and neocolonial (343).” This way, the exhibit turns “to the potential of the archive and the colonial library as sites from which the seemingly irreversible power of colonialism can simultaneously be enacted and contested (343).”

This exhibit is divided into three parts, chronologically interconnected, that cover Equatorial Guinean colonial and neocolonial history. The sections are: "The Temptation of Empire", “Neocolonial Politics in the Museum and Conflicting Identities in Eguatorial Guinea" and “Alternative Conservation and Heritage Practices in Equatorial Guinea. The Case of the Museum Felipe Osá Angüé." This organization aims to deconstruct visitors' perception of the colonial archive and its uses from a transhistorical and global angle. Each section addresses the ideological uses of the archive both in the metropolis and the former colony, questioning the Spanish civilizational mission that still persists beneath the language of institutional collaboration and modernization in cultural spaces.

The completion of this digital project has been made possible through the 2024 Mellon Doctoral Summer Fellowship awarded by the Price Lab for the Digital Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. The exhibition portal will be available indefinitely thanks to the support of Van Pelt Libraries.

Bibliography:

Sampedro-Vizcaya, Benita. "Rethinking the Archive and the Colonial Library: Equatorial Guinea." Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, 2008, pp. 341-363.

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Text Asociasión Euskara la exploradora Manuel Iradier

19th Century Spanish Expeditions within the West African Territory. The case of Manuel Iradier's "África. Viajes y trabajos de la asociación euskara la exploradora"

“Mientras Bélgica ha derrochado su caudal en el Congo, Inglaterra, sus libras esterlinas, Francia y Alemania han pagado su alto tributo en dinero y sangre en el África Negra. España recibe de nuestras manos una hermosa colonia sin derramar una gota de sangre ni costarle una peseta. El milagro fue siempre nuestro y tuvo sus mártires.”

“While Belgium has squandered its wealth in the Congo, England, its sterling, France and Germany have paid their high tribute in money and blood in Black Africa. Spain receives a beautiful colony from our hands without spilling a drop of blood or costing it a peseta. The miracle was always ours and it had its martyrs.”

Manuel Iradier, colonial settler (1901).

Manuel Iradier’s expeditions and the endeavors of the Asociación Euskara La Exploradora must be critically examined within the broader context of 19th-century Spanish imperialism. Iradier’s explorations in West Africa, particularly Equatorial Guinea, were not just scientific endeavors but integral parts of Spain's colonial project. By mapping uncharted territories and documenting the local populations, Iradier facilitated Spain’s territorial claims and subsequent colonial rule. His work, supported and funded by Spanish authorities, illustrates how exploration served imperial interests, cloaked in the guise of scientific discovery. The Asociación Euskara La Exploradora, as a colonial enterprise, further exemplifies this dynamic. It perpetuated colonial epistemologies by producing knowledge that framed African lands and peoples through a Eurocentric lens, reinforcing notions of European superiority and entitlement to foreign territories. Iradier’s ethnographic and geographic documentation imposed European categories onto African contexts, legitimizing the subjugation and exploitation of these regions. This critical perspective reveals that Iradier’s contributions, while significant in the field of geography, were also complicit in the broader mechanisms of colonial domination and control. Understanding Iradier's work within this framework underscores the importance of scrutinizing how colonial knowledge was produced and utilized to sustain imperialist agendas.

Ultimately, Manuel Iradier’s assertion that Spain acquired its African colony peacefully and without financial cost contrasts sharply with the violent, costly colonial endeavors of Belgium, England, France, and Germany. This narrative seeks to justify Spanish colonial expansion by portraying it as more humane and morally superior. Additionally, it challenges the Black Legend, which painted Spain as uniquely cruel in its colonial practices, by suggesting that Spain was capable of ethical and just governance. By emphasizing a narrative of benevolent acquisition, Iradier aimed to rehabilitate Spain's colonial image and position it as a responsible colonial power.

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Introductory Remarks

Browse Items (1 total)

19th Century Spanish Expeditions within the West African Territory. The case of Manuel Iradier's "África. Viajes y trabajos de la asociación euskara la exploradora"