This conference examines war losses and casualties during the East and South-east Asian conflicts from the 1930s (e.g. Manchurian Crisis) to the 1970s, including the Second World War and the Chinese Civil War, with a focus on military (and prisoner) casualties rather than those of civilians. These conflicts were marked by the juxtaposition of hybrid military strategies and tactical configurations; a variety of local, regional, and international actors (including non-state groups); and a high degree of violence within fluid categories of imperial/anti-imperial, civil, and global warfare. The conference seeks to draw connections between these conflicts and regions by examining the administration of war losses and casualties, including the transfer of skills, knowledge, material, and personnel associated with these practices

November 15 – 17 2023, Maison Française d’Oxford, University of Oxford

Rationale

This conference examines war losses and casualties during the East and South-east Asian conflicts from the 1930s (e.g. Manchurian Crisis) to the 1970s, including the Second World War and the Chinese Civil War, with a focus on military (and prisoner) casualties rather than those of civilians.  These conflicts were marked by the juxtaposition of hybrid military strategies and tactical configurations; a variety of local, regional, and international actors (including non-state groups); and a high degree of violence within fluid categories of imperial/anti-imperial, civil, and global warfare.  The conference seeks to draw connections between these conflicts and regions by examining the administration of war losses and casualties, including the transfer of skills, knowledge, material, and personnel associated with these practices.  We are interested in papers that address:

• practices regarding the identification, recording, and counting of war losses and casualties, including methods and their broader social and political contexts and implications
• the implementation of medical, technological, and logistical innovations
• the immediate and/or long-term management of combatant human remains within the context of necro-economics and necro-geopolitics
• approaches that derive from the history of medicine and science, as well as those from the history of war and international relations, including a focus on non-Western military actors and/or an awareness of shifting spatial and temporal scales

Submission guidelines

Abstracts of up to 300 words max. should be sent to warlossescasualties@gmail.com

by 1st of June 2023.

Organisers

• Benoît Pouget,
• Mark Harrison,
• Jeong-Ran Kim

Scientific Board

• Mark Harrison,
• Jeong-Ran Kim,
• Erica Charters,
• Roderick Bailey,
• Taline Garibian,
• Benoît Pouget,
• Elisabeth Anstett,
• Walter Bruyère-Ostells,
• Ben Schoenmaker,
• Jasper Heinzen,
• Nicholas Marquez-Grant.