ABSTRACT
The photograph is a record of a real contemporary event, rather than the fiction of a book or film. The child is not playing; the gun is a lethal weapon, the girl is being trained to kill. The photograph creates a disjunction between the encultured expectations of the modern Western reader and material reality. Connections which we hold with concepts of ‘child’ (innocent, passive, protected, happy and young) and ‘weapon’ (worldly, aggressive, violent, suffering and adult) are mutually exclusive oppositions. The juxtaposition of a child with a lethal weapon creates incongruity; the material culture of the gun ought to be held in a different hand, the uniform of battle should be worn by another body. Further disruption is caused by a female holding the gun as weapons are deemed male objects (McKellar 1996). We conceive of children as apolitical, yet here the girl appears involved in adult intrigue. For all these reasons, conceptual associations between the child and the material culture do not match.
