Photographs, emotions and protest at a colonial Memorial in Brazzaville (Congo)

This article explores the insights of photo-elicitation interviews as a methodological genre for understanding how people construct narratives of a memorial associated with colonialism. We argue that the interaction with photographs made the research participants feel more comfortable and at ease sharing their perspectives on the Savorgnan de Brazza Memorial, and the most salient benefit of the method derived from how people express their feelings and emotions. As our empirical data show, using photographs allows to capture people’s deep resentment against the Memorial and how they protest the contrast between the lavish Memorial on the hand, and the derelict statues honouring local historical figures on the other hand. Unlike words-only interviews, the photo-elicitation interviews offered the opportunity for the participants to visually explore the aesthetic, the magnitude and the footprint of the Memorial and to compare it to similar artefacts in the city of Brazzaville. Such contrast, and the emotions that they triggered, would not have been possible to capture if the participants were not exposed to the photographs.