"Clouds of Fantasy and Pellets of Information": Photojournalism and British Counterinsurgencies

This paper examines the photojournalism coverage of British counterinsurgencies in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, and Northern Ireland in order to understand the underlying narratives that were communicated about the nature of the conflicts. Photography’s implicit claim to transparency and dialogue with the matrix of cultural beliefs and assumptions to which it refers to offers a rich source of information about how these conflicts were communicated to outside citizens. Through several recurring motifs, the photojournalism communicated that all four insurgencies communicated a threat, but not one so great that it threatened British control. The ambiguous messages of the photographs made them too fragile to emerge as “iconic” photos, or function as vessels of collective memory.