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Abstract
Post-9/11, communication scholars have published a number of articles invested in the relationship between US representations of Afghan women and imperial policy—a genre I dub the Afghan Alibi. I highlight this literature as a catalyst to consider an older image that functioned in much the same way. A critical consideration of National Geographic's 1985 Afghan Girl provides an opportunity to consider the ways in which representations and public policy get fused together to rhetorically coordinate and organize meanings. After considering the significance of the image's cultural location, and the role National Geographic played in US public policy, I take up six visual signifiers—veil, childhood, eyes, anonymity, refugee, and femininity—that mark this image as victim. I conclude by arguing that the 1985 Afghan Girl offered viewers the opportunity to rhetorically constitute public support for President Reagan's initiative to arm Afghanistan.
Acknowledgements
This manuscript is derived from a dissertation chapter advised by Dr. David Hingstman at the University of Iowa. An early and significantly distinct version of this essay was presented at the 2005 NCA/AFA Summer Conference on Argumentation. The author wishes to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers as well as Dr Karen Pitcher, Dr Michael Karlberg, Dr Karen Stout, and Dr Anna Eblen for their instructive comments.
Notes
1. Iconic photographs “provide an accessible and centrally positioned set of images for exploring how political action (and inaction) can be constituted and controlled through visual media” (Hariman & Lucaites, Citation2007, p. 5).
2. Images “combine all media forms and are a synthesis of language, discourse, and viewing. Images are, among other things, sites of communication” (Burnett, Citation2004, p. 9).
3. Hesford and Kozol (Citation2005), Kolhatkar and Ingalls (Citation2006), and Schwartz-DuPre (Citation2007) astutely attend to the rhetorical significance the 2002 text.
4. While this essay is specific to the ways in which female images have been deployed as justifications for colonial conquest in Afghanistan specifically, it is worthwhile noting that representations of “women-in-need” have provided justifications for occupation in a variety of imperial occupations. Deepa Kumar's Citation2008 essay details a few of the many instances where “women's liberation has served as a prop to bolster imperial rhetoric” (pp. 26–27).
5. I am not making an argument regarding the truth of the image; rather I am demonstrating how it sutures together US imperial desires with their political commitments.
6. I move between referring to the Afghan Girl as a subject (her) and an object (it) because I do not consider the image to have a static reception among audiences.
7. I use the term “fourth world” as a means of calling attention to the inequality and privilege that functions within and between people occupying the same territorial space, race, and class configuration.
8. There are various spellings for mujahideen. I have intentional selected this version because it is the one feminist scholars Kolhatkar and Ingalls (Citation2006) advance.
9. Steet (Citation2000) adopted the term from the magazine's first senior editor Gilbert Grosvenor's 1894 annual address (p. 19).
10. A term Barthes (Citation1982) borrowed from Lacan meaning “a sting, speck, cut, little hole”… an accident which pricks and bruises” (p. 27).
11. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimates that during the 1980s they were anywhere between, or beyond, 25 and 30 million Afghan refugees and displaced persons (Boyden, Citation1994, p. 255).