Soldiers’ Photographic Representations of Participation in Armed Conflict

Abstract

What makes soldier photography distinctive? In this chapter, we discuss the photographs that soldiers and other military personnel take and possess. Through this we explore how something ostensibly as simple as capturing or owning a photograph entails complexities around both the meaning of armed conflict and the personal representation of participation in armed conflict. We look first at the range of practices around the taking of photographs of and by soldiers, and discuss the ways in which photographic practices might be seen as distinctive in military contexts. This includes the use of the photograph to mark the transformation of the civilian to soldier, the use of photographs for military purposes distinct from the more obvious official and tactical use of surveillance photography and the use of photographs as a communicative tool for military personnel. We then go on to look at how photographs themselves, as material objects, have specific functions for military personnel as they move through and beyond their military lives.