Le chercheur-photographe et ses images de terrain : l’entreprise photographique d’Edgar Aubert de la Rüe

• Published in: Photographica
• Main Authors: Durand, Marie, Mauuarin, Anaïs
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Arts and Architecture; scholar-photographer; fieldwork; natural sciences; ethnography; colonial photography; photo library; musée de l’Homme; Edgar Aubert de la Rüe; New Hebrides; Vanuatu; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands
• Online Access: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/01H0D8QDX4YXY9WXKHDHNFA9Y8; http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01H0D8QDX4YXY9WXKHDHNFA9Y8; https://doi.org/10.54390/photographica.786; https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/01H0D8QDX4YXY9WXKHDHNFA9Y8/file/01H0D91GNK3CTF6XYGT1CMT87C

From the French Somali Coast (Djibouti) to French Guiana and from the Kerguelen Islands to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), the geologist Edgar Aubert de la Rüe criss-crossed several little-known territories of the French colonial empire between the 1920s and 1960s. During his career, assisted by his wife, he not only produced a colossal collection of photographs, but also ensured that his work was known and circulated, thus building his own photographic enterprise. This article proposes to shed light on the ways in which this scholar worked with his images and to identify the mechanisms and circulation networks that he mobilized. Based on these analyses, the article formulates the hypothesis that, in a period when it is becoming common for researchers to take photographs in the field, Aubert de la Rüe embodies a figure that we propose to call the “scholar-photographer,” who established an authorial relationship to his own images.