Relatos visuales misionales de los cuerpos indígenas: vergüenza y civilización en Chocó, Colombia 1909-1930

TL;DR

The article analyzes Claretian missionary photographs and reports from Chocó, Colombia (1909–1930) to show how visual and textual narratives used shame and the savage/civilized binary to mold indigenous bodies, especially women’s, into Catholic, civilized citizens. It argues these images served both as records of missionary work and as devices of cultural assimilation, while also registering resistance and leaving indigenous intimate life largely invisible.

Key findings

• Missionary visual narratives framed indigenous bodies through shame and a moral differentiation between “salvaje” and “civilizado”; shame produced fear and vulnerability and facilitated social control, inscribing native populations into the Colombian national project.
• Photographs of women ca. 1920–1930 show a transformation toward an “urbanized” and spiritualized body: long hair with ribbons, long dresses and shawls, books/catechism, and studio-like poses; images were used as testimonies of missionary work and for teaching catechism.
• Mission reports claim large-scale ritual incorporation: Table 1 for 1911/1912 lists baptisms 3,983/3,287; confirmations 1,497/1,716; communions 33,888/39,383; marriages 404/232; burials 203/293. Prefect Juan Gil estimated 100,000 inhabitants in Chocó (10,000 whites, 20,000 mulatos, 50,000 negros, 20,000 indios), contrasted with censuses of 1905 (54,176) and 1912 (68,127; Quibdó 15,756).
• Resistance appears, for example, in the case of Arsecio, labeled “bruto en la selva” in a 1924 caption, who resisted religious and educational practices; the article notes evangelization was not total or complete and that some indigenous people resisted.

Methods

• Historical and visual analysis of the Claretian mission in Chocó, 1909–1930, contextualized by the Regeneración, the 1887 Concordato, and the Conservative Hegemony.
• Primary sources include mission memoirs and reports (Atucha, Gil, Gutiérrez, Mesa, Fernández), official reports, and photographs ca. 1920–1930 (Figures 1–6); both textual and visual narratives are examined.
• Qualitative interpretation draws on sociology of the body and emotions and civilization theory (Elias, Le-Breton, Bourdieu, Nussbaum, among others), focusing on shame, corporal representation, and gender.

Limitations

• Stated: the population’s own narrative is difficult to access and permits only approximations; the degree of imposture in photographic poses cannot be precisely determined; the meaning of women’s facial gestures remains to be identified; the article cannot address all ways civilizational language entered politics.
• Stated/evident: reliance on missionary sources and photographs means indigenous voices and intimate life are largely mediated or invisible (“qué ocurre tras la puerta cerrada”); some photographs lack photographer information; mission statistics are inconsistent with censuses and sometimes inflated, as the article notes.
• Evident from the text: the study is qualitative and case-specific, so its findings are not generalizable beyond this mission and region.