Groepsportret van mensen bij de paardenraces van Xiamen 1889

St Julian Hugh Edwards took this photograph of people at the Xiamen horse races. Looking closely, it seems that most, but not all, of these spectators are Westerners. Horse racing, like other sports such as cricket and polo, was popular among the British, who in the 19th Century formed a powerful expatriate community in China. What does it mean for sport to be enjoyed in colonial settings? It is a way of performing authority and consolidating identities. It could also be understood as one of the ways in which social capital was produced, as certain people and not others are given access to these spaces. Photography offers rich documentary evidence for understanding social and cultural relations in the past. Photographic archives, sports publications, and historical studies on colonial societies will help to explore this further. In this way, we can understand art as a product of particular historical moments.