FRAMING THE COLONIAL SUBJECT - THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF BURTON,W.F.P. (1886-1971) IN THE FORMER BELGIAN-CONGO

William Burton founded the Congo Evangelistic Mission in 1914 and work ed at Mwanza in South Eastern Zaire from that time until the outbreak of civil war in 1960. Between about 1930 and 1940 Burton took photogra phs of ethnological subjects to complement the collection of artefacts he was making for the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg . This paper examines these photographs in the context of Burton's mis sionary work at the time of expanding colonial power; and it considers how his selection of subject-matter, and his manner of representing h is subject-matter, were affected by the competing claims of anthropolo gical knowledge and Christian evangelism.