CALL FOR PAPERS
Pleasures of War
Special Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology
See the CFP on journal website: https://journals.uio.no/JEA/announcement/view/466
Editor-in-Chief: Tereza Østbø Kuldova
Guest editors: Heidi Mogstad & Thomas Randrup Pedersen
The main purpose and outcome of war, Elaine Scarry (1985) famously wrote, is injury. However, despite this ugly fact, there is more to war than pain and suffering. In this special issue, we invite anthropologists and other scholars using ethnographic methods to discuss and theorise (lived) experiences and representations of war as pleasurable. We particularly encourage contributions analysing the affective experiences and narratives of veterans, active-duty members of the armed forces, private military contractors, paramilitaries and other militants but also welcome studies of war correspondents, humanitarian workers, researchers and others who find pleasure in war zones.
Theorising war pleasures
The idea that soldiers or other actors experience war as pleasurable can seem unthinkable or offensive (Dent 2023). Indeed, in contemporary Western societies, war is usually depicted as a tragic and regrettable event (De Lauri 2013) causing not only injury but moral collapse and torment. What is more, describing war as joyful or pleasurable might challenge societal taboos (Johais forthcoming) and civilian moralities opposing violence and aggression (Mogstad 2024).Certainly, depictions of war as pleasurable are not uncommon in popular culture and fiction. For instance, manifold novels, memoirs and Hollywood movies portray warfare as thrilling and addictive or foreground the joy and warmth of soldierly bonds and comradery (e.g., Gray 1959; Broyles 1984; Tolstoy 1993; Schubart et al. 2009). However, in the scholarly literature, the focus has usually been on the horror and suffering wars produce. A discipline favouring studies of victims and underdogs (Robbins 2013; Pedersen 2021; Robben & Hinton 2023), anthropology has particularly foregrounded the human costs of war from the perspective of civilians or marginalised groups. Moreover, when studying soldiers, anthropologists have typically focused on their post-war struggles, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (Kilshaw 2008; Finley 2011; Messinger 2013), moral injury (MacLeish 2019; Molendijk 2021) and other problems readjusting to civilian life after homecoming (Maringira 2015; Sørensen 2015). While these studies have been important, we must consider other experiences and emotions to understand the continued attraction of war and subjectivity of war-fighters (Warnier 2011; Welland 2018).In recent years, anthropologists and other ethnographers have started to address this omission by analysing soldiers and other war-fighters experiences of thrill, joy and pleasure (Dyvik 2016; Pedersen 2017; Welland 2018; Saramifar 2019; Hervouet-Zeiber 2023; Mogstad 2024; Mogstad & Pedersen 2024; Achilli et al. forthcoming). Building on this literature, as well as the ERC-funded project WARFUN led by Antonio De Lauri at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, this special issue focuses specifically on affective and embodied experiences of pleasure in warzones.
We ask: What happens when we shift the focus away from wars’ horrors, pain and suffering and place war pleasures at the centre of our analysis? How can we make sense of pleasurable war experiences that take place not despite, or in excess, of war but because of it?
Invited contributions
This special issue invites contributions based on ethnographic, or other qualitative research methods, that offer novel ways of understanding war and warfighting through the lens of pleasure. We particularly encourage papers analysing the affective experiences and narratives of veterans, active-duty members of the armed forces, private military contractors, paramilitaries and other militants (‘foreign fighters’, ‘insurgents’, ‘rebels’, etc.) but also welcome studies of war correspondents, humanitarian workers, researchers and others who find pleasures in war zones.Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
Ethnographic analyses of extraordinary or mundane episodes or experiences of pleasure in war
Papers considering the co-extensiveness of pleasure and pain, or affirmation and destruction, in warfare
Gendered analyses of the pleasures of war and war-fighting
Critical discussions of the politics war pleasures express or engender
Papers reflecting on interlocutors’ and/or researchers’ moralities of war and violence
Ethnographic readings of stories, tales, myths, metaphores and spectacles depicting and narrating war pleasures
Auto-ethnographic accounts and reflections on positionality by researchers who have participated in or accompanied their interlocutors in combat or warzones
Submission details
The special issue emerges from The Experience of War Conference organised in Bergen 2023 where several conference participants discussed how we could understand and theorise pleasures of war and violence.[1] While some conference participants have expressed interest in contributing, we invite additional papers and submissions in different formats: articles, essays, book reviews, photo essays, interviews and experimental submissions. If you wish to submit a paper, please send an abstract of approximately 250-300 words and a short bio note to both guest editors and the editor-in-chief at heidi.mogstad@cmi.no, thpe@fak.dk and tkuld@oslomet.no before the 15th of November 2024. The deadline for full submissions (max. 9000 words) will be the 15th of May 2025.
Journal of Extreme Anthropology is an international, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary and indexed journal specializing in extreme subjects, practices and theory. Articles are published Online First, and may thus appear individually prior to the full issue. For submission and author guidelines, please visit: https://journals.uio.no/JEA
References
Achilli, Luigi., Antonio De Lauri, Eva Johais, Iva Jelusic & Heidi Mogstad. 2025. War and Fun: Exploring the Plurality of Experiences and Emotional Articulations of Warfare and Soldiering [Introduction to Special Issue]. War & Society (in press).
Broyles, William, Jr. 1984. Why men love war. Esquire, pp. 55-65.
De Lauri, Antonio. 2013. ’Introduction’ in Antropologia: War, edited by Antonio De Lauri. Milan: Ledizioni, pp. 7–24.
Dent, Jackie. 2023. Pleasures of War. Public Anthropologist Blog. Available at:
Dyvik, Synne L. 2016. ‘Valhalla Rising’: Gender, Embodiment and Experience in Military Memoirs. Security Dialogue 47(2): 133-150.
Finley, Erin P. 2011. Fields of Combat: Understanding PTSD Among Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Gray; J. Glenn. 1959. The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. Harcourt.
Hervouet-Zeiber, Grégoire. 2023. The “Salt” of Life: Of Wars and Their Domesticities in Contemporary Russia. American Ethnologist 50(1): 43-53.
Johais, Eva. 2025. The WARFUN Taboo. War & Society (in press).
Kilshaw, Susie. 2008. Impotent Warriors: Perspectives on Gulf War Syndrome, Vulnerability and Masculinity. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
MacLeish, Kenneth. 2019. How to Feel About War: On Soldier Psyches, Military Biopolitics, and American Empire. BioSocieties 14(2): 274–299.
Maringira, Godfrey. 2015. Militarised Minds: The Lives of Ex-combatants in South Africa. Sociology 49(1): 72-87
Messinger, Seth D. 2013. Vigilance and Attention among U.S. Service Members and Veterans after Combat. Anthropology of Consciousness 24(2): 191-207.
Mogstad, Heidi. 2024. The Self-Realising Soldier: Post-Heroic Reflections from Norwegian Afghanistan Veterans. Public Anthropologist 6: 79-124.
Mogstad, Heidi & Thomas Randrup Pedersen. 2024. Inside the Wire: Heidi Mogstad in conversation with Thomas Randrup Pedersen. WARFUN DIARIES Vol. 3.
Molendijk, Tine. 2021. Moral Injury and Soldiers in Conflict: Political Practices and Public Perceptions. New York, NY: Routledge.
Pedersen, Thomas Randrup. 2017. Get Real: Chasing Danish Warrior Dreams in the Afghan ‘Sandbox’. Critical Military Studies 3(1): 7-26.
Pedersen, Thomas Randrup. 2021. Breaking Bad? Down and Dirty with Military Anthropology. Ethnos 86(4): 676-693.
Robben, Antonius C. G. M. & Alexander L. Hinton. 2023. Perpetrators: Encountering Humanity's Dark Side. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Robbins, Joel. 2013. Beyond the Suffering Subject: Toward an Anthropology of the Good. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19(3): 447-467.
Saramifar, Younes. 2019. Tales of Pleasures of Violence and Combat Resilience among Iraqi Shi’i Combatants Fighting ISIS. Ethnography 20(4): 560-577.
Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schubart, Rikke., Fabian Virchow., Debra White-Stanley & Tanja Thomas. 2009. War Isn't Hell, It's Entertainment: Essays on Visual Media and the Representation of Conflict. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co Inc.
Sørensen, Birgitte Refslund. 2015. Veterans’ Homecomings: Secrecy and Postdeployment Social Becoming. Current Anthropology 56(S12): S231-S240.
Tolstoy, Leo. 1993. War and peace (Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude). Wordsworth Editions.
Warnier, Jean-Pierre. 2011. Bodily/material Culture and the Fighter’s Subjectivity. Journal of Material Culture 16(4): 350-399.
Welland, Julia. 2018. Joy and War: Reading Pleasure in Wartime Experiences. Review of International Studies 44(3): 438-453.
[1] Some versions of the conference papers were published on the Public Anthropologist blog. See here: https://publicanthropologist.cmi.no/category/warfun/
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