Picturing Non-Alignment: Visual Histories of Yugoslav-Cambodian Entanglements

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Abstract

Visuality played a central role in the representation of non-aligned relations, and the display of
Yugoslav-Cambodian ties was no exception. Both sides were keen to capitalize on diplomatic visits,
whether it was their own representatives traveling abroad or when hosting guests in Yugoslavia and
Cambodia, respectively. Belgrade also utilized photography to convey domestic and international
messages on ideas about leadership and global relevance, as well as non-aligned cooperation and
relationships between Southeastern Europe and Asia. This paper explores how state-sponsored and
private photographic practices established a complex imagery of non-alignment that often navigated
the fine line between established colonialist (self-)representation of Indochina on the one hand and
anticolonialism as a central pillar of Yugoslavia’s foreign policy on the other. By analyzing
photographs and the networks behind their production and circulation, the paper touches upon a broad
variety of themes and entangled histories of Yugoslavia and Cambodia, ranging from labor history
against the backdrop of the company Energoprojekt and its Kirirom 1 Hydropower Dam project, to the
history of educational exchanges. It suggests that photographic practices reflected and co-constructed
ideas of Yugoslavia’s liminal hegemony within the non-aligned movement, conflicting notions of
colonial traditions of visual representation and vernacular cultures of (self-)representation,
imaginations of Socialist modernity and self-management, predominantly traditional imageries of
masculinities and femininities, and visualized concepts of solidarity and anti-colonialism.

Author

• Dominik Gutmeyr-Schnur, U of Graz (Austria)