This week, I’m joined by fellow Imperial War Museum (IWM) doctoral researcher Katy Thornton (King’s College London), whose research uses the photojournalist Tim Hetherington’s archives at the IWM to examine the fascinating power dynamics between photographers, their subjects, and contemporary culture. Using her own background as a youth worker and academic grounding as a sociologist, Katy explores the intricate relationship between the photographer and the photographed within the context of youth combatants in West Africa between 1989 and 2003. In this evocative and stimulating conversation, we discuss her incredibly nuanced approach to a deeply complex subject, Hetherington’s own remarkable legacy, and the importance of acknowledging the role that power, perception, and agency play in what the camera captures of war.

Katy’s doctoral research: https://www.iwm.org.uk/research/doctoral-awards/students-alumni/katy-thornton

Links to Katy’s selected photographs

1. A LURD combatant, and member of the AA (Anti-Aircraft) brigade, in an exchange with his girlfriend during the LURD advance on the capital Monrovia. June 2003: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205738356

2. The anti-Gaddafi uprising and Civil War in Libya, 2011: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/contemporary-conflict/tim-hetherington

3. Near the port of Greenville: A fisherman sails past one of the many shipwrecks scattered along Liberia's coastline. September 2005: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205738530

In this episode, I’m joined by award-winning documentary filmmaker and photojournalist Fiona Lloyd-Davies, whose fearless storytelling has placed her on the frontlines of global conflict for more than three decades. From the besieged towns of Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiona has used her camera to expose human rights abuses and amplify voices that often go unheard.

We explore her remarkable career, from her early work during the Bosnian war including work on the BAFTA-winning The Unforgiving, to her own extraordinary filmmaking, such as Ordered to Rape, which revealed the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in Congo, and her work on the groundbreaking Baghdad blogger series with Salam Pax. Fiona reflects on the ethical responsibility of witnessing, documenting, and framing war, and on filming stories of immense trauma with compassion and integrity.

We also discuss her upcoming project UNCONQUERED: Goražde City of Heroes, and her BBC Radio 4 Archive on 4programme, which revisits one of the least-known sieges of the Bosnian war through powerful first-hand testimony.

BBC Radio 4 (Archive on 4) “The Battle of the Drina”, now available on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002nh76

Fiona’s production company: https://www.studio9films.co.uk/about-1

Links to Fiona's selected photographs

1. Stanley Spencer's 'Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station at Smol, Macedonia, September 1916’: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Spencer%2C_Stanley_%28Sir%29_%28RA%29_-_Travoys_Arriving_with_Wounded_at_a_Dressing-Station_at_Smol%2C_Macedonia%2C_September_1916_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

2. Serbian Epics (1992): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UTmiTsmHQ4 (the gun sequence from 34:15 - 34:24)

3. Lee Miller's "Fall of the Citadel, St. Malo (1944): https://rps.org/media/5p0fb2sq/copyright_leemillerarchives_fall_of_the_citadel-_aerial_bombardment_st_malo_france_1944-lr.jpg?mode=max&width=1520&rnd=133687995851170000

4. Portrait of Ancilla, Fiona Lloyd-Davies: https://sotonac-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/ha4g21_soton_ac_uk/IQCKEwiCWic0TpAM-IuDfrrMAUWQV1SH93Uiw-TIRlMUbU4?e=atH7Ci

5. [Bonus] An elderly woman pushing her belongings through the rubble of Kravice village, eastern Bosnia, January 1993, Fiona Lloyd-Davies: https://sotonac-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/ha4g21_soton_ac_uk/IQCKEwiCWic0TpAM-IuDfrrMAUWQV1SH93Uiw-TIRlMUbU4?e=atH7Ci

This week, I’m joined by Dr Ali Fisher from Human Cognition Ltd. and Università Cattolica in Milan. Ali’s work bridges strategic communications and data science to counter emerging threats in complex information environments, such as political disinformation campaigns, online child sexual abuse networks, and the exploitation of online platforms by terrorist groups. Ali is the creator of Mujahid Mind AI and the BlackLight data feed - tools that provide near real-time insights into Salafi-Jihadi exploitation of the Internet, which, combined with his decades’ long familiarity with the subject and his own training as a historian, mean he is uniquely placed to discuss this often-misunderstood genre of conflict imagery. In this conversation, Ali and I discuss a broad range of subjects such as deciphering Salafi-Jihadi visuals, researcher wellbeing, the important work of preserving visual content from Gaza, and his development of tools that can help curate, preserve, and decode online content.

Note: Due to a discussion of atrocity imagery in this conversation - mainly some examples of graphic violence that are briefly mentioned - listener discretion is advised.

Link to Mujahid Mind AI: https://www.mujahidmind.io

Some of Ali’s recent co-authored publications mentioned in the episode:

Decoding the Terrorist Mind, The European Institute for Counter Terrorism and Conflict Prevention (EICTP), July 2025: https://eictp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Final_Decoding-the-Terrorist-Mind-The-Role-of-AI-Powered-Tools.pdf

Gore and Violent Extremism: An Explorative Analysis of the Use of Gore Websites for Hosting and Sharing Extremist and Terrorist Content, VOX-Pol, 2025: https://voxpol.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/DCUPN0751-Gore-Extremism-WEB-250704.pdf

Ali’s selected photographs:

Islamic State fighter on horseback at sunset: https://onlinejihad.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/pic5.jpg

Nsala of Wala in Congo looks at the severed hand and foot of his five-year old daughter. Photographed by John H. Harris in May 1904. Appears in Edmund Morel, King Leopold's rule in Africa, (1904) p. 145: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nsala_of_Wala_in_Congo_looks_at_the_severed_hand_and_foot_of_his_five-year_old_daughter,_1904.jpg