‘It is all about bringing the archive back into visibility’: Ichi: Marks in time

Journal article

Anthropologist Paul Basu and filmmaker Christopher Thomas Allen discuss their collaborative documentary Ichi: Marks in time (2023), which documents the return of colonial‐era photographs to the Umudioka community in Neni, Nigeria. The film follows community responses to images from 1911 of facial scarification marks (ichi) taken by British anthropologist Northcote Thomas. Basu and Allen reflect on community‐initiated collaboration, the theory of affordances applied to colonial collections, and how archival repatriation can generate joy and creativity. Through extensive image captions featuring film participants’ voices, the piece demonstrates how bringing colonial archives back into visibility activates their decolonial affordances for descendant communities.

Authors: Basu, P; Allen, CT; Crisp, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Anthropology Today
• Volume: 41
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 21-25
• Publication date: 2025-12-01
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8322.70038
• EISSN: 1467-8322
• ISSN: 0268540X, 0268-540X
• Language: English