Hey guys
Thank you all very much for your answers. Your online archives have in fact helped me a great deal, as well as the informations regarding the history of racial prejudices of Jehovah's Witnesses did.
Smiddy asked me to present the results of the work. As it is written in German, I'll present you a super brief summary of the 30 pages paper. My apologies for grammar mistakes.
My research question was how Africa was presented in the images in the magazine "Watchtower" from 1981 to 2015 (in 1981 i found the first actual photography in a Watchtower magazine). According to various theorists of sociology, anthropology and history, images are an important yet in an academic context under-researched source of knowledge. The turn towards research regarding pictures is described as the "visual turn" in cultural science. With the work of Edward Said I argued that Africa is often presented as an orientalistic "Other" in contrast of the western world and connoted with various stereotypes such as barbarism, irrationality or backwardness. Further I argued that Jehovah's Witnesses have a history of racial stereotypes based on a bible passage which was interpreted in such a way that black skin color was a curse by god. This interpretation was the norm in the publications of Jehovah's witnesses until the 1930, and partly still present until the 1980s. However, from the 1980s onwards, the witnesses made great effort to establish anti-racism as a norm inside their community. When I finally analyzed pictures of the watchtower I limited the analysis to 12 pictures, divided in four sub-categories: Africa and spiritism, Africa as place of crisis, pictures of Jehovah's witnesses in Africa and the African version of the watchtower magazine. With the first section, Africa and spiritism, I argued that Africa was and still is today presented as a place of heresy and "backward" religions, labelled as "spiritism". Further, from 1980 to 2003, when global crisis were adressed in the Watchtower, it was always pictures of Africa that were used to illustrate "crisis". This changed in 2003, when other parts of the world, e.g. South America, were also used to illustrate themes as "poverty" visually. In the chapter "Jehovah's witnesses in Africa" I argued that it from the 1980s onwards, black people were used as models to illustrate photographies of African contexts. While in the beginning heavy stereotypes, e.g. regarding "native" clothing, were more than visible, the representation of African models changed towards a more realistic and modern represantation with time. This is best presented with the last sub-section, the African version of the Watchtower. Since the late 2000s, an African version of the watchtower exists. While in the rest of the world, models from different cultural contexts are used, in that African version of the Watchtower, every cover is changed so that the models are only people with black skin colour. The cover is exactly the same as in the rest of the world, execpt that non-black models are replaced with black models, e.g. with photoshop. My explanation for the shift in all aspects of the visual representation of Africa in the "Watchtower" towards positive visual communication is, in short words, that the number of Jehovah's witnesses in Africa is growing much faster than in other parts of the world. To adress the more and more important community of African Jehovah's witnesses, positive visual language was necessary, as the representation of Africa as an orientalistic "Other" was regarded as colonial by African witnesses and especially by potential new members.
That summary is of course much shortened, but I hope it gives an idea of what my project was to those who were curious about it. Thank you all again for your support, you have truly helped me with your suggestions and links.
