Travel magazines and settler (post) colonialism

In early 2016, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) online news website featured brilliantly colored photographs of Papua New Guinean men in elaborate tribal costume. French photographer Marc Dozier’s stunning images celebrate the ingenuity of traditional crafts, the ongoing role of customary practices, and the performative masculinity of Papua New Guineans. Australian readers on their summer breaks found these images on Facebook and other online sources: formats that made the most of the exquisitely colored images. The photographs were undoubtedly exotic, yet for older Australian readers they would also have been strangely familiar. From the 1930s onward, Australian magazines often featured costumes and people from Papua New Guinea (PNG), alongside stories about a wide variety of Pacific crafts and cultures. Mid-century travel magazines such as Walkabout – produced between the 1930s and 1970s by the Australian National Travel Association – showcased images with high production values alongside travel narratives written by leading Australian writers. These took armchair travelers deep into the PNG Highlands, for example, providing a privileged view into communities in Australia’s geopolitical neighborhood. In so doing, publications helped project Australian soft power in the region, especially after the Pacific Theatre in World War II. Exotically dressed Papua New Guineans may recall their mid-century precursors, but Dozier’s photographic settings are deliberately disjunctive. Mundiya Kepanga traveled to Washington, New York, and other US cities. Dozier juxtaposes the southern highland chief in full traditional dress against iconic backdrops – such as the Statue of Liberty or brilliant yellow New York taxi cabs – or among subcultural groups such as bikies in Tucson, Arizona, LGBTI parade participants in Manhattan, and young Navajos dressed traditionally for the Arizona Festival Navajo Nation Fair. Here the Papua New Guinean is a tourist. Kepanga sees the sights, takes selfie shots, and finds unexpected commonalities while meeting the locals: tattoos, body piercings, flamboyant costuming, and indigenous cultural maintenance. Dozier’s photographic essays have been published in a range of international travel magazines, including National Geographic, Grand Reportage, and El Sur Travel as well as newspapers such as Le Monde. Like Australian readers, global audiences would situate this striking contemporary photography within the context of earlier mass entertainment sources