Visualising War and Peace

In this podcast Alice interviews two guests, both based at the US Army War College and both researching AI-enabled military technologies. LTC Dr Paul Lushenko is the Director of Special Operations and a Faculty Instructor in the U.S. Army War College’s Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations. Paul has combined an academic career with regular military deployments, directing intelligence operations at the Battalion, Combined Task Force, and Joint Task Force levels. He is the co-editor of Drones and Global Order: Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society (2022), which studies the implications of drone warfare on global politics. With colleague Shyam Raman he has also co-authored Legitimacy of Drone Warfare: Evaluating Public Perceptions (Routledge in 2024), which explores public’s perceptions of legitimate drone strikes.

Dr Jerilyn Packer is an award-winning educator, specialising in the US military school system. Twelve years ago she transitioned into educational leadership, which enables her to engage in reflective practices and collaborative coaching with district and school leaders in the Department of Defense Education Activity. Skilled in strategic planning, professional learning, and data analysis, she partners with senior leaders to identify educational gaps and craft targeted solutions to improve achievement. Dr. Packer is currently running a research project which uses interviews and focus groups among senior officers to determine what shapes their trust in AI-enabled military technologies. Going forward, she hopes to employ this research in an upcoming role within the Senior Executive Service, so her findings will have broad policy impact.

Paul and Jerilyn help us grapple with recent technological developments in warfare which have huge implications for how governments, militaries and the public visualise conflict – and indeed peacekeeping – now and in the future. Indeed, as Paul’s 2022 edited volume underlines, drone warfare and AI require us to rethink the structural and normative pillars of global order. Between them, they discuss recent developments in drones and AI technologies; their increasing incorporation into military arsenals, strategy and practice; barriers to their use such as concerns around ethics, governance and trust; and the ways in which they are changing our habits of visualising war itself.

Among other topics, we touch on the dehumanising, racist and colonial dimensions of drone warfare; the moral questions posed by asymmetric/'riskless'/'post-heroic' conflict; and connections between Greek myths, dystopian science fiction and the new war-storytelling patterns that are increasingly inspired by AI. This episode offers important reflections, based on both Paul and Jerilyn's research, into the challenges and concerns of professionals who find themselves in an often 'uneasy partnership' with emerging military technologies, and poses critical questions about wider public understandings and perceptions.

We hope you find the discussion interesting. Paul dives deeper into these important topics in recent articles 'Trust but Verify' and 'AI and the future of warfare'.  For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website.

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode, Alice interviews Dr Joseph Scales, a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of Religion, Philosophy and History at the University of Agder in Norway. This podcast is the second part of a pair looking at the history and representation of conflict in ancient Judea. 

In part 1, Conflict and Identity in Ancient Judaism, Joe gave us a whirlwind tour of a whole series of conflicts that shaped Jewish history from around 175 BCE through to the early second century CE – looking particularly at their impact on Jewish nationhood and identity formation. That conversation provides really useful context for this epsiode, which dives deep into some of the textual sources for Jewish conflict history in antiquity. Joe draws particularly on his current research project, called Fighting Talk: Motivating Violence in Ancient Judaism, which examines the nature of pre-battle speeches in ancient Jewish texts and their relationship to established forms of pre-battle exhortation in Greek and Roman sources. 

As Joe has written: ‘People resort to violence for all kinds of reasons. In the interests of peace, it is essential to understand how people may be incited toward organised violence. …In warfare, combatants are often incited towards their actions by others, and in the ancient world, such incitement frequently took the form of a pre-battle speech: Greek, Roman and Jewish literature contains many examples.’ In unpicking a wide range of ancient pre-battle speeches, and exploring recurring components (such as the othering of enemies, claims about the just or necessary nature of upcoming violence, a commander’s handling of his soldiers’ fears, and visualisations of success), Joe’s research contributes not only to a deeper understanding of how warfare was conceptualised and driven in antiquity but also to wider reflections on how organised violence can be conceptualised, justified and incited today.

We hope you find the discussion interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode, Alice interviews Dr Joseph Scales, a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of Religion, Philosophy and History at the University of Agder in Norway. Joe’s doctoral research analysed spaces of Jewish identity in ancient Galilee, looking particularly at the impact of material culture on personal, communal and regional identity formation during the Hasmonean dynasty, from 100 BCE onwards. His book Galiliean Spaces of Identity will be published in 2024.    

Joe’s work on Jewish and Hellenistic identities, and their cross-cultural interactions, has led to further research on ancient Jewish texts written in Greek, which enable us to understand aspects of the shared culture of the ancient Mediterranean world; and he has become very interested in women’s practices and rituals in Judaism. Both of these research interests feed into his current project, called Fighting Talk: Motivating Violence in Ancient Judaism, which examines the nature of pre-battle speeches in ancient Jewish texts and their relationship to established forms of pre-battle exhortation in Greek and Roman sources.

Because the politics of the region in this period are so complex, we have recorded a Part 1 and a Part 2 for this podcast. In this episode, Part 1, Joe  talks us through Jewish interactions with other groups and political powers in the region from around 175BCE to the early 2nd century CE – to help us understand the history of Judea and Jerusalem, and the ways in which ongoing conflict (near and far) shaped Jewish practice and identity, not just at the time but for many centuries afterwards. In Part 2 (which we hope you will also listen to, because it’s super interesting!), Joe  dives deep into some of the textual sources from the period, looking particularly at the ways in which they visualised battle itself and justified war.

We hope you find the discussion interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode, Visualising Peace student Madighan Ryan interviews Dr. Mark Wong, a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Research Methods, and the Deputy Head of Urban Studies, at the University of Glasgow. Dr. Wong has extensive expertise in the fields of responsible AI and the Just Transition, and has been an advisor in this capacity to the Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland, amongst other institutions. He is also the principal investigator of the interdisciplinary Innovator’s Assemble Project at the University of Glasgow, which produced the subject of this podcast: SEvEN: Seven voices, One Future, a videogame aimed at building an environmentally sustainable future for Scotland by highlighting Minoritized Ethnic people’s voices and the importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. SEvEN was recently nominated in the Spirit of Scotland Category for the Scottish Games Awards.

This episode draws on Madighan Ryan's research into the synergies between environmental sustainability and peace. She is looking at everything from the importance of inner peace in remaining resilient as a member of the climate movement, to the necessity of a healthy environment in lowering risk of scarcity and geopolitical conflict. Her aim is to emphasize that peacebuilding and environmental action are not  two separate entities but intimately connected. Madighan is particularly keen to draw on conversations with the wider Visualising Peace team about the importance of involving traditionally marginalised groups and minoritised voices in conversations that connect climate and peacebuilding, and it was for this reason that she invited Dr Wong to share his innovate gaming project with listeners.

In the first part of the podcast, Dr. Wong establishes the inseparability of peace and sustainability. Not only is mitigating and adapting to climate change necessary for a peaceful future, Dr. Wong emphasises that a peaceful future will only be possible if the voices of minoritised ethnic peoples are centred in conversations surrounding a just transition towards an environmentally and socially sustainable future. The rest of the podcast is a deep dive into the details of SEvEN. Dr. Wong speaks on everything from design choices, to the real-life impact of SEvEN, to the effectiveness of video games as a tool to visualise peace.

As Dr. Wong paints a picture of SEvEN, it becomes evident that this video game is a means of visualising peace in two different and interconnected capacities. First, the game helps players visualise peace and sustainability as a process that should centre minoritised ethnic peoples’ voices and traditional knowledge. Players learn the importance of listening and of supporting this type of knowledge. Second, the process itself of co-designing the video game with different industry partners in a collaborative manner does so much to teach the designers and to bolster community involvement. The way in which SEvEN was produced is itself an example of peacebuilding.

Please enjoy this episode as we immerse ourselves into the sustainable world of SEvEN and explore gaming as a means of visualising peace! For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Visualising Peace Project. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Madighan Ryan

In this episode, Alice interviews Anne Lene Stein, a PhD Student in the Department of Political Science at Lund University, in Sweden. With a background in both social anthropology and peace-and-conflict studies, Anne’s research over the past ten years has focused on peace activism in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon (among other places). She is particularly interested in protest and resistance in asymmetrical conflict settings, and has conducted several rounds of fieldwork in the region to understand better how different peace movements have been operating and evolving.

Her most recent visits to Israel and Palestine were in summer 2023, before the latest tragic escalation in the conflict. While there, she talked with both Palestinian and Israeli peace campaigners and anti-occupation activists, and observed joint Israeli-Palestinian protests and commemoration events. In the wake of Hamas’ brutal attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7th, and Israel’s sustained bombing of Gaza over the following weeks, peace in the region looks further away than ever – but work towards peace is all the more urgent.

In the podcast, Anne outlines a brief history of peace activism in both Israel and Palestine, discussing the impact which different events in the long-running conflict have had. She reflects on increasing hostility towards peace activists, particularly in Israel; on creative approaches to peacebuilding on both sides, including the Palestinian concept of Sumud ('steadfastness') as a form of non-violent resistance; on the opportunities and challenges of bi-national peace campaigning; and shifts in language and focus from peace-building to anti-occupation activism. She also discusses the theory of 'agonistic' peacebuilding, which asks us to distinguish between enemy and adversary, antagonism and agonism, and which aims to make space for ongoing contestation and multiple truths in peacebuilding processes.

As Anne explains, the word 'peace' has itself become a contested concept over time in Israel and Palestine, with different communities visualising it in very different ways. As a result, while many are still working and hoping for peace, the word is used less and less often. Given the world-building nature of language and narratives, we discuss what the implications are for the future if people no longer feel able to articulate their aspirations as peace-work. Despite all the obstacles, and the devastating impact of recent events, Anne cites activists on both sides who insist that accepting the ongoing violence is not an option. In their words, 'if we keep meeting, partnering, taking action - we will break the cycle'.

We hope you find the discussion interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Visualising Peace Project. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode, Visualising Peace student Albert Surinach I Campos interviews Prof. Giuseppe Pezzini, Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. While Prof. Pezzini's main area of research is in Classics, his interests extend beyond the ancient world, focussing particularly on Tolkien life and literary corpus. He is set to publish a monograph soon on Tolkien’s theory of imagination, stemming from his work as Tolkien Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies and a collaboration with the ITIA Institute at the University of St Andrews, where he previously taught. 

Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and his other works have had a profound impact in the 20th and 21st century. While film versions of his books have particularly influenced habits of visualising war, Tolkien's views on peace have lots of relevance in the modern world. In this episode we discuss how peace and peacebuilding get represented in Tolkien’s corpus, the author’s personal experiences of war, and his attitude to pacifism. The conversation falls into four parts, exploring ideas of peace via Tolkien's representation of the four main races of Middle-Earth: elves, orcs, dwarves and men. 

One feature of Tolkien’s works is his nostalgic view of a world in steady decline. After a glorious golden age, the successive eras of mortals are increasingly damaged by constant wars and injustices. Here, we see a very clear parallel with the Golden Age of antiquity, as well as with other mythologies throughout the world. No race embodies this diminishing 'golden age' as much as the elves, and discussion of them gets us thinking about Tolkien's nuanced perspectives on peace. To what extent is peace modelled as an escape (available only to some), as an ideal rather than a feasible, sustainable reality? And what can other characters - like the Ents - contribute to our understanding of why people go to war and what peacebuilding might involve? 

Sauron and Orcs come particularly to mind when we visualise war in The Lord of the Rings. As Prof. Pezzini explains, the mythology behind orcs is murky, with their origins purposefully hidden, and they act much of the time as a stand-in for 'the other', a faceless, evil enemy that is easily demonised. In recent times, they have made their way into popular culture; for instance, some Ukrainians have referred to Russian soldiers as 'orcs'. However, Prof Pezzini reminds us that Tolkien's representation of orcs (outlined in a letter to his son) included some empathy and pity, not just dehumanisation.  Similarly, his representation of dwarves and men encompasses both belligerence and more positive qualities, and this enables Tolkien to explore aspects of both war and peace with greater nuance. While reflecting on the more militarising nature of film versions of Tolkien's books, Prof. Pezzini helps us to unpick different ways of visualising war and peace across his literary corpus, in relation to his own wartime experiences, offering lots of food for thought in relation to contemporary conflict.  

We hope you enjoy this episode, as we travel to the fascinating world of Middle-Earth while trying to make sense of our own understanding of peace-building in the real world. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Visualising Peace Project. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Albert Surinach I Campos

In this episode, Visualising Peace student Robert Rayner interviews Debby Flack. Debby served as an Ecumenical Accompanier (EA) with EAPPI in Palestine and Israel. EAPPI is a World Council of Churches programme which sends human rights monitors to Palestine and Israel for three months at a time. The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel was formed in response to a 2002 call from the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem to create an international peacekeeping presence in Palestine. EAs form multinational teams which provide an impartial, nonviolent 24/7 protective presence across the West Bank. While the World Council of Churches and many organisations which send EAs are Christian organisations, the programme sends those of all faiths and none. The programme has evacuated EAs during the most recent escalation of the conflict.

Debby is a Quaker from Godalming in Surrey, who was trained and served in the South Hebron Hills earlier this year (2023). Robert discusses with her what an ‘average’ day as an EA looked like, what accompaniment actually is, and why ‘principled impartiality’ is so important. Debby explains how her experience has shaped her life back home, how it has led to her current advocacy and activism and the importance of local engagement for peace. During the podcast, she discusses both the pragmatic and more abstract aspects of the work, from spiritual practices for peacekeepers to how to see and understand both sides of a deep-rooted conflict. She describes the importance of EAs’ protective presence, especially against the backdrop of the current violent flareup of the conflict, in the wake of Hamas' attacks on October 7th and Israel's military response.

This episode reflects Robert's wider research interests in the role of religion in peacebuilding, and what the advantages and disadvantages of neutrality are for NGOs working in conflict-affected areas.

We hope you find the conversation interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, including some of Robert’s museum entries on Neutrality, Impartiality and EAPPI, please visit the please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Visualising Peace Project. 

In this episode, Alice interviews Dr Jaremey McMullin, a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Jaremey’s research spans a wide range of topics, from ex-combatant disarmament and veteran reintegration to youth peacebuilding and political participation in post-conflict contexts.

His 2013 monograph Ex-Combatants and the Post-Conflict State: Challenges of Reintegration examines disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration policies and experiences via four case studies, in Namibia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Liberia. He is particularly interested in the impacts of reintegration and veterans’ assistance programmes on people’s post-conflict identities, and also in the consequences of incomplete reintegration for ongoing conflict transformation. As well as working in Africa, he has examined veterans’ assistance programmes in the US, producing (among other outputs) a short documentary called Silkies (2020) on the prevention of veteran suicide. He has written several reports for the Disarmament, Demoblisation and Reintegration section at the United Nations Department of Peace Operations, and serves on the Research Working Group of the Integrated DDR Training Group.

In the podcast, Jaremey helps us to visualise the war-to-peace transitions experienced by ex-combatants and veterans as life-long journeys, which can be injurious for many. He exposes the myth of 'return' (as if people can simply pick up the threads of their pre-war lives); discusses differences in perceptions and framings of ex-combatants and veterans; and reflects on the limitations of many DDR programmes.

This leads to broader discussion of the hard work of peacebuilding. Among other work, Jaremey has produced a documentary film series on the everyday work of peacebuilding called Liberia: Legacies of Peace. As he explains, the five films ‘profile people at every level of Liberian society engaged in the hard work of war-to-peace transition.’ He has developed a particular interest in youth peacebuilding processes and identities, and his current project, Motorcycling as Peacebuilding in Liberia, examines the experiences of groups of ex-combatant and conflict-affected youth in Liberia who have become motorcycle taxi drivers – overcoming insecurity and marginalisation, and emerging as active peacebuilders themselves.

In exploring Jaremey's work, we discuss the ethics and dynamics of Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Jaremey's efforts to involve young peacebuilders as knowledge-producers and research designers, not objects of study. He sets out his approach in Hustling, Cycling, Peacebuilding and What is the benefit of this project?.

We hope you find the discussion interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Visualising Peace Project. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode, Alice interviews Prof. Steve Murdoch, Head of Military History at the Swedish Defence University. Before taking up that role, Steve was a professor of military history at the University of St Andrews, and he has been a generous supporter of the Visualising War project from its start. Steve’s research focuses on Scottish and Scandinavian relations in the early modern period. He has worked particularly on the Thirty Years War, fought from 1618-1648; and he has also written a range of books and articles about Scottish maritime warfare and wider Scottish experiences (both military and civilian) of conflict in this period. 

As both a teacher and researcher, Steve thinks critically about how and why we do military history – about our blindspots and biases, the evolution of historical events into sometimes mythical narratives, the voices we don’t hear from, and the relevance of military history to contemporary military thinking and practice.  We discuss all of this and more in the podcast epsiode. 

Steve begins by giving us an overview of the complex set of events that became known as the Thirty Years' War. He helps us to visualise its scale and wide-ranging locations, overlaps with other conflicts, and the shifting agenda and alliances of those taking part. He also gets us looking critically at how sources from the time represented events and participants, and how later scholarship has engaged with them. This gets us talking about the dominance of 'great battles' and 'big personalities' in past and present habits of visualising the Thirty Years' War; at the distorting effects of certain biases in both sources and scholarship; and at what we gain when we pay more attention to ordinary people's voices. For instance, Steve shares with us some letters written by both soldiers and commanders which help us to track the everyday experiences and concerns of those involved, which contrast strongly with the self-aggrandizing rhetoric of some better-known sources; and he also helps us to visualise how the Thirty Years' War was experienced by a range of women, who lost family or were displaced (or both) in the conflict.

Steve ends by reflecting on the kinds of peacebuilding achieved (and not achieved) by the Peace of Westphalia. He gives us some fascinating insights into the work of two Scottish diplomats, Sir Robert Anstruther and Sir James Spens, who were intimately involved in negotiations between different sides; and he discusses the ongoing ripple effects of the Thirty Years' War after its official conclusion, for ordinary people as well as international relations. All in all, he helps us to visualise this complex period of conflict - which impacted many different countries - from a wide and refreshing range of perspectives. 

We hope you find the discussion interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode, Visualising Peace students Otilia and Harris interview Johanna McMullan and Paul Gallagher who are trained educators at the Widows Against Violence Empowerment (WAVE) Centre. WAVE is the largest cross-community victim group for people who have been affected by conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968-1998. While The Troubles officially ended over 25 years ago, past violence, current tensions and ongoing traumas continue to impact people today.  WAVE promotes peace, reconciliation, and trauma recovery through 5 different centres and 15 satellite projects across Northern Ireland. 

Johanna is a senior Nursing and Midwifery lecturer at Queens University in Belfast. For over a decade, Johanna has been working with the Wave Trauma Centre in Belfast where she delivers citizen education programs and other trauma-informed training. Paul came to WAVE in 2010 for support after he was severely injured in 1994, having being shot 6 times. Today, through trauma recovery at WAVE, Paul has obtained his master’s degree in conflict reconciliation and social justice and his PhD thesis in Sociology. Throughout the conversation, Paul and Johanna share their insights into how education through loving and caring practices enable victims to recover from trauma and support the fragile, yet lasting peace in Northern Ireland. 

In the episode, Johanna first delves into the different aspects of love and care that are important to consider when designing trauma-informed education for citizens and health-care professionals. Paul then shares his personal story of how a sense of communal care and inner peace were crucial for his own healing, discussing also how trauma affects the human mind and body over time. Both Johanna and Paul emphasise that the path towards sustaining peace – in Northern Ireland and elsewhere – depends on the collective reflection and co-operation of a caring community. To build such a community in practice, WAVE brings citizen education to the forefront of their work; their trainers bring different generations together in remembering the conflict and also in promoting trauma recovery through multiple generations. 

We hope you find our conversation interesting.

For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Visualising Peace Project. 

Music composed by Jonathan Young 

Sound mixing by Harris Siderfin