Military Welfare History Network – Call for Papers

‘Rethinking Concepts, Terms and Topics’
The 4th International Conference of the Military Welfare History Network 2025
July 9-11, 2025 at the University of Graz, Austria

Approaches to military history and the history of war welfare have changed fundamentally in recent decades. They shifted from a focus on event history, the depiction of predominantly operational levels, the monopolisation of military meanings or discourses of legitimation to innovative approaches to a cultural history of armed conflicts, which are particularly influenced by Social History, the History of Mentalities, Body or Gender history. This also applies in particular to the analysis of military welfare and care practices from a historical and social science perspective, which has undergone a fundamental reorientation in recent years, not least as a result of current care ethics debates.

The fourth international conference of the Military Welfare History Network, which will take place for the first time at the University of Graz (Austria) in 2025, aims to explicitly focus on the theoretical, conceptual and research-practical dynamics associated with this reorientation. The conference aims to reflect about these changes in studies of care and welfare practices in military contexts and to discuss older and new concepts and their implementation in research. Referring to a problem- orientated approach, an explicitly interdisciplinary and trans-epochal orientation will be taken.

The aim of the MWHN conference is therefore to critically examine the effects of theoretical and conceptual perspectives as well as the productive applicability of (new) methods and concepts on different dimensions:

• the macro-level (state-national, transnational or global relations and networks, civil society and corresponding symbols, norms and orders etc.)
• the meso-level (such as the history of institutions and organisations as well as interdependencies between economic, political, societal, cultural and military issues)
• the micro-historical relationships (self-testimonies, personal identities, biographies etc.) in war care and welfare practices

Discourses, socio-cultural negotiation processes, the distribution of and access to socio-cultural resources, covert or overt power relations and hegemonies that form their background should be addressed as well as dimensions of experience and, in general, research desiderata and gaps in previous scientific approaches.

Submissions with either a theoretical-methodological or conceptual focus or empirical case studies are welcome. In both cases, the submitted contributions should address both levels (albeit with different emphases). In this way, the exchange of concepts and perspectives, mutual interaction possibilities and the intended discursive character of the conference should be promoted.

In particular, the following topics can be addressed:

• Vulnerability | Trauma | Violence
• Belongings | Identities | Interdependencies | Diversity | Social entanglement
• Spaces | Boundaries | Transgression
• Body | Sexuality | Gender

We request submissions be sent via email by November 30, 2024. Individual papers or panels of three papers plus commentary can be submitted. Each paper abstract should be a maximum of 250 words and should be accompanied by a 50-word biography. Panels should also include an additional ‘panel abstract’ of up to 250 words.

Travel and accommodation costs cannot be covered, but travel grants for Postgraduate Researchers and Early Career Researchers can be awarded subject to available funds. The Graz organisation team will also assist with travel and accommodation arrangements.