Journal Blog
In photo and video material of violent conflict, a phenomenon regularly occurs that needs interpretation: perpetrators of violence who appear to enjoy their actions, or bystanders laughing or smiling while others commit violence.
What can soldier humour tell us about international relations? To begin with, humour is a universal social practice …
The dominant discourse about war is that soldiers deployed and fighting in it dominate the landscape, and the animals which live in it. This paper focuses on the ways that Zimbabwean soldiers were made to understand the sacredness and spirituality of the Democratic Republic of Congo landscape: river water, swamps, snakes and ghosts by the local Congolese civilian people.
Commenting on my research for the WarFun project, someone once remarked that I must be using a very broad definition of fun — one that, apparently, included everything. In a way, they were right. But my usage of the term fun did not come from nowhere. It gradually emerged through engaging with the sources I had at my disposal.
I am currently wrapping up an essay film, Falling, about my fraught relationship with Pepe and his brother, two retired Argentine military officers whom I met during my doctoral research on crimes against humanity from the perspective of those who suffered and those who perpetrated political violence.
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. “The world is not in your books and maps. It’s out there”, Gandalf noted turning his glance towards the moonlit window. “You’ll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back”, he …
Continue reading “‘I’ve seen things …’ and other pleasures of war”
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. Traditional war practices, such as killing are not easily linked with sexual intimacies in war. The image of a soldier is that of a rough-ridding macho-man driven by the desire to kill characterised by bigotry. While this …
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. There has been significant scholarly interest in the militarised and enclaved spaces of international intervention and war(Chandrasekaran, 2010; Fisher, 2017; Weigand and Andersson, 2019). Afghanistan’s “kabbuble”, Baghdad’s ‘Emerald City’, or Mogadishu’s airport ‘green zone’, are among the …
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. War and waring are extremely playful events. Warriors playfully lighten the burden of brutalities that either their anticipation hunts them or they are exposed to in combats. However, warriors’ playfulness is considered intensely transgressive fun by civilians …
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. The experience of military violence during the German ISAF operation has not only been essentially new to German society and the armed forces but also and particularly to the Bundeswehr soldiers. For the first time since the …