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Contemporary African Royals, in Regalia and Complexity
A new photography exhibition at London’s Tate Modern includes images of monarchs from across the continent, steering away from Western imagery.
It sucks when interesting work gets overshadowed by ignorance.
Monarchies in French colonies continued to exist because they played the role of intermediaries between colonial administrators and the local populations. Their role wasn't just ceremonial; they helped colonial authorities reshape the local cultures by facilitating the introduction of western norms and behaviors to their populations. The local monarchies gave legitimacy to missionary institutions (schools and churches) by using their own relevance to the people to echo the policies of the colonial powers.
To this day, a lot of these traditional institutions continue to fulfill the role liaison between the administration and their populations, especially in countries where the political power is centralized in the capital. These monarchies are an integral element of the systems of government, even though they exist outside the electoral process.
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