Picturing Afghanistan

This is an in-depth account of the Euro-American visualisation of the conflict in Afghanistan. Comparing images in public affairs, psychological warfare, journalism and the photo-book, the author argues that there are no strong boundaries between photography in war and photography about war. He shows how and when the media have adopted, extended and counter-framed the public affairs discourse of militarism and humanitarianism, and how and when public affairs rely on the aesthetic codes of photojournalism. Instead of enforcing a unified interpretation, the author considers photography’s ambiguous and contradictory aspects. It is argued that, even within the conventionalised genre of photojournalism, photographs of conflict do not merely promote unity and social cohesion but express anxieties associated with the breakdown of imagined communities.