Documenting War Conference: Case Studies in Evidence – Archival, Textual, Visual, Testimonial
Channel: War Studies KCL
Date: 2022-08-18

War has been a central feature of the human experience. It requires study from many different vantage points, from military, intellectual, and diplomatic history to histories of science and technology.

The “lessons of history” are a much-discussed feature of this. Meanwhile, the challenges associated with documenting war – of identifying, accessing, collecting, preserving, and making use of war records – have often been taken for granted. The contemporary policy relevance of primary sources – and of the historical methods and expertise needed to make sense of them – is increasingly reflected across the social sciences, in law and in other disciplines. Similarly, there is a broader interest in “battlefield evidence”, “battlefield information”, and “conflict archives” that currently animates policymakers, political scientists, civil society actors, and international institutions.

The Documenting War Conference organised by the Conflict Records Unit of the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War explored these issues through series of case studies and panel discussions.

Discussant: Dr Rachel Kerr, Prof. of War and Society, Co-Chair, War Crimes Research Group, KCL.

Panellists: Dr Hélène Mutter, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Mariia Golik, PhD Student, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Center for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies; David Foulk, PhD Candidate, Oriel College, University of Oxford.