Gendered Tropes in War Photography

Photographic stills of women, appearing in both press coverage and relief campaigns, have long been central to the documentation of war and civil conflict. Images of non-Western women, in particular, regularly function as symbols of the misery and hopelessness of the oppressed. Featured on the front pages of newspapers and in NGO reports, they inform public understandings of war and peace, victims and perpetrators, but within a discourse that often obscures social and political subjectivities. Providing a unique, systematic, gender-sensitive analysis of the content of selected images, as well as of their circulation and recognition, this book enhances understanding of both the structure and transmission of contemporary encounters with war, violence, and conflict.