Where does war start and stop? How is war experienced? How does war differ from peace? from security? In this lecture we will address these vexing questions. Taking our point of departure in the mandatory readings, the first half of the class will trouble the distinctions between war/peace (and war/security).

The second half of the class will consist of a discussion of the limits of warring from the perspective of 'experience'. Please come prepared to the class by considering the following questions:

•What are the lines of distinction that determine war/not war (peace or security?) and how are they drawn? Or not drawn?

•When does /war warring start/stop?

•Where does it start/stop?

•What is included in war/warring, what is not?

•How might these lines be blurred in different peoples/groups experiences?

•What kinds of political subjects are being produced/constituted through the drawing of limits?

Lecturer: Maria Stern

Study Questions:

Nordin and Öberg (2015:397) state "Could it be that the idea of war as ‘fighting’ evokes a ‘reality of warfare’ that makes us blind to other things in what we designate as ‘war’?" How do you make sense of this statement from reading their article?
Nordstrom (2004) begins and ends her prologue with a discussion of an image of a watermelon (p. 5). What do you think she was trying to convey by focusing on this image?
How is "understanding people's experiences with/in war ...essential for understanding war" (Sylvester, 2013:1), according to Sylvester?

Mandatory Reading:

Nordin, A.H.M. and Öberg, D. (2015) ‘Targeting the Ontology of War: From Clausewitz to Baudrillard’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 43(2), pp. 392–410. doi:10.1177/0305829814552435.
Nordstrom, C. (2004) Shadows of war: violence, power, and international profiteering in the twenty-first century. Berkeley: University of California Press (California series in public anthropology, 10). Prologue: 5-18.Nordstrom (2004) - Prologue.pdf
Sylvester, C. (2013) War as Experience: contributions from international relations and feminist analysis. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge (War, politics and experience). Introduction: War questions for feminism and international Relations, pp.1-14. Sylvester (2013) - Introduction.pdf

Suggested Reading:

Stern, M. and Strand, S. (2022) ‘Periods, Pregnancy, and Peeing: Leaky Feminine Bodies in Swedish Military Marketing’, International Political Sociology, 16(1), pp. 1–21. doi:10.1093/ips/olab025.
Bartelson, J. (2017) War in international thought. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1: Towards a Historical Ontology of War, pp. 1- 32.Bartelson (2017) - Towards a Historical Ontology.pdf
Sylvester, C. (ed.) (2011) Experiencing war. London; New York: Routledge (War, politics and experience). Chapter I: Introduction, pp 1-7. Sylvester (2011) - Experiencing War.pdf
Pain, Rachel and Lynn Staeheli. (2014). ‘Introduction: Intimacy—Geopolitics and Violence’. Area, 46 (4), pp. 344-347.