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15 May 2025

CONFERENCE: Global Histories of Violence (c.1800-2025) (Warwick: University of Warwick, 29-30 MAY 2025)

(image source: Warwick University)

Description: 

Histories of violence have become a commonplace theme in the study of Global History over the past decade, perhaps especially so in relation to imperialism and colonialisms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Violence is about oppression and domination, but it often means far more than warfare, and in this conference we aim to explore the wide variety of registers through which global violence histories can be recognised and examined.


How can we research and write global histories of violence in ways that properly reflect cultural distinctions, that take account of the agency of local actors at all levels, and that embrace conceptual traditions from different parts of the world? The papers at this conference will reflect these aspirations in setting out histories from many cultures and many locations. Histories of violence have previously too often been written about in abstract ways, without description and even without explanation: in recent decades this has changed dramatically, with graphic and often disturbingly detailed histories being constructed around the violent events that shaped imperial and colonial relations in many parts of the world, or that mobilised revolts, ideologies or social movements across the globe. The narrative of these violence histories, once dominated only by the shallow stories of the victors, now more accurately reflects wider and diverse perspectives, familiarising us with victims and perpetrators alike. And everywhere, violence has its afterlife, casts its shadow, and leaves it legacies.

Our panels in this conference will take up these issues in focussing upon themes in the history of violence from around the globe – massacres, punishment, states of exception, organised crime, incarceration, sexual violence, terrorists, insurgencies and decolonization – each one illustrated by papers that will empirically explore the character and meaning of that violence in its context, while also opening up a comparative discussion about the impact and legacy of violent histories.

Program:


Thursday 29 May, OC1.04 Oculus Building

 

10.00 – 10.30 Registration and coffee/tea

10.30 – 10.45 Welcome

10.45 – 11.45 Session 1 STATES OF EXCEPTION

Chair – David M Anderson The University of Warwick

Black Ops in Kenya’s Colonial Emergency: the Pseudo Gangs, Frankie Vetch Freelance

State of Exception and the Making of Violence in Northern Kenya

Evelyne Owino University of Bonn

11.45 – 13.15 Session 2 MASSACRE

Chair – Niels BoenderUniversity of Edinburgh

The 1860 Damascus Massacre: When Extermination Becomes a Reasonable Solution

Eugene RoganSt Antony’s College, University of Oxford 

"We're Not Great at Telling the Truth" - the 'Mystery' of the My Lai Massacre

Kim A. WagnerQueen Mary, University of London

How to Hide a Massacre: Monte de Chila and the 'Dirty War' in Mexico, Thom RathUniversity College London 

13.15 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Session 3 PUNISHMENT

Chair – Doreen Kembabazi The University of Warwick

Theatres of the Revolution: ZANLA bases in Gaza Province and Guerrilla Violence in Zimbabwe's Liberation War, 1976-80, Gerald Mazarire University of Birmingham

The Long Shadow of Violence from the Abyssinian Campaign, 1867-68, Zoe Cormack British Museum

The Meanings of Murder: Ecological Violence and Panther-Men Rumours in the Ivorian-Guinean Forest Zone, 1890–1940,

Wallace Teska Trinity College, Cambridge 

15.30 – 16.00 coffee/tea

16.00 – 17.30 Session 4 ORGANISED CRIME

Chair - John Dickie University College London

The Mafia, Unseemly Capital, and the Post-WWII Economic Transformation of Phoenix, Arizona

Jake Newbery University College London

'The Biggest Mafia Was the State’: a Brief History of Mexican Cartels, Ben Smith The University of Warwick

The Geography of Nawabari: Measuring the Effect of Yakuza Offices in Neighbourhoods,

Martina Baradel University of Oxford

17.30 – 18.30 Session 5 INCARCERATION – Keynote Lecture

Violence, Punishment and Resistance in Prisons and Penal Colonies in the Nineteenth-Century British Imperial World,

Clare Anderson University of Leicester

19.00 Drinks and Conference dinner

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Friday 30 May, OC0.04 Oculus Building

 

9.00 – 10.00 Session 6 SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Chair – Sacha Hepburn The University of Warwick 

State Security Forces and Sexual Crimes in Kenya’s Counter-Insurgencies, 1952-1991

David M Anderson The University of Warwick

Sexual Violence and Conceptions of Harm in Apartheid South Africa, Emily Bridger Exeter University

10.00 – 11.00 Session 7 TERRORISTS

Chair – Karuti Kanyinga University of Nairobi

British Service Women and Violence during The Troubles in Northern Ireland,

Hannah West Anglia Ruskin University

Terrorist Informers in Northern Ireland as Both Perpetrators and Victims of Violent Offences,

Samantha Newbery Salford University 

11.00 – 11.30 coffee

11.30 – 13.00 Session 8 INSURGENCY

Chair – Dan Branch The University of Warwick

Shoulder Pole and 2 Baskets’: Exhibiting Forced Resettlement in Malaya, Carl Warner Imperial War Museum 

Beyond Institutional Narratives: Re-examining the Cyprus Emergency at the Imperial War Museum

Megan Joyce Imperial War Museum 

Civil War’ Violence, Anti-Colonial Conflict: Kenya’s Mau Mau at the Imperial War Museum, Niels Boender University of Edinburgh

13.00 – 14.00 lunch

14.00 – 15.00 Session 9 DECOLONIZATION – Keynote Lecture

Violence and the Global History of Decolonization, Martin Thomas Exeter University

15.00 – 15.30 coffee/tea

15.30 – 17.00 Session 10 Roundtable: WHAT IS COLONIAL VIOLENCE?

Chair - David M Anderson The University of Warwick

Panel: Roel Frakking, Karuti Kanyinga, Doreen Kembabazi, Martin Thomas, Kim Wagner

17.00 – 17.15 Closing remarks, David M Anderson The University of Warwick 

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