Comments on: What Tim Hetherington Offered to Anthropology

By: K MacLeish

K MacLeish — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:45:13 +0000

Thanks so much for this, Zoë. Tim was unique and an inspiration in so many ways, not least for being such a supremely eloquent commentator on his own work. It’s a combination of aesthetic expression, critical reflection, curiosity, empathy, and a desire to provoke the imagination of his audience that is, I think, what the best ethnography can do as well.

In addition to his images, I know that his words will stick with me for a long time. I was struck in particular by a couple of points he made that elegantly distilled some previously inchoate feelings I have about my own work. For instance, he talked about the importance of “counterpointing the library of images” that people already have for war–or for anything they think they know about. And counterpointing it, it seemed to me, not just by “showing the other side” (as if all things have two sides, or indeed are even things at all), but by inciting a whole new frame of interpretation. He also said, of the documentary aspect of his work, that he was “not interested in subjectivity or objectivity,” and that he “liked the ethical challenges” of working in such fraught spaces. It’s a kind of boldness that I think many anthros value, but that can so easily get buried under disciplinary pieties and conventionalisms.

By: Erin Finley

Erin Finley — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:35:35 +0000

Zoe, thank you for this thoughtful tribute. I was very moved to hear of Tim’s death yesterday, and as I have explored more of his work over the intervening hours I am only more so. He and others of his colleagues have much to teach us – particularly, I think, something critical about approaching our work with a certain simplicity. What a loss.

By: MTBradley

MTBradley — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:59:17 +0000

I had read a number of reviews of Restrepo prior to seeing the film, all generally to very positive and noting the unsettling impression left by the film’s portrayal of small-unit combat as its strength. My girlfriend and I—both of whom have spent time as civilians in a country in the midst of a civil war—left the film more unsettled by other things things portrayed on the screen. That those things were included, I think, really speaks to the quality of the film and those involved in putting it together. It really is unfortunate that one of them is no longer with us.