Killing Time: Homosocial Bonding Behind the Front Line in Tim Hetherington’s Infidel

Abstract

Even in intense combat scenarios, a significant proportion of a soldier's time is spent passing the time. Tim Hetherington was acutely aware of this contradiction; of the 240 pages of Infidel, his account of the time he spent in Combat Outpost Restrepo in the remote Afghan Korengal valley, only about one sixth show soldiers actually in combat. The remaining pages depict soldiers maintaining their base, passing the time playing cards, wrestling each other, and sleeping. This focus on the lacunary moments between skirmishes and contacts marks out the work as attuned to a more complex understanding of the nature of soldiering in front line situations. This paper situates Hetherington's work into a longer historical engagement with the depiction of soldiers ‘killing time’ between moments of combat, and in the context of how the homosocial nature of the proximity in which soldiers live and work contributes to their combat motivation.

Keywords:

• combat motivation
• war
• Afghanistan
• Hetherington
• conflict
• representation of violence
• homosocial bonding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In 1942, Steichen and his six hand-picked photographers began their assignment with the Naval Aviation Unit. By the end of the war, Steichen, as Director of Naval Photographic Institute, was responsible for 4,000 photographers – the Navy’s combat camera crews. They travelled on surface ships, submarines, and aircraft and visited factories to record the events of World War II.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Lowe

Dr. Paul Lowe is a Professor of Conflict, Peace and the Image at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London, UK. Paul is an award-winning photographer represented by VII Photo. His book, ‘Bosnians,’ documenting 10 years of the war and post-war situation in Bosnia, was published 2005. His research focuses on the visual representation of conflict, and recent books include ‘Photography Masterclass’, ‘Understanding Photojournalism,’ ‘Reporting the Siege of Sarajevo’ and ‘Photography, Bearing Witness and the Yugoslav Wars, 1988–2021: Testimonies of Light’.