Rovaniemi workshop: Resilience and Militarisation

The network Politics and Power of Resilience (POWERS 2023-2024) aims at developing interdisciplinary and critical discussions around resilience and its power effects in the Nordic context. The project is funded by The Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) and its exploratory workshop program.

The POWERS network is happy to announce the call for papers for its third international workshop Resilience and Militarisation. The workshop will be held at the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland, 12-13 November 2024 and it is hosted jointly by the Arctic Centre, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Unit for Gender Studies.

The aim of the workshop is to foster scholarly discussion on the interlinkages between resilience and processes of militarisation in various spheres of society. Resilience is taking an increasingly central role in policies and discourses of national security and has been propagated internationally by NATO as the concept which will shape its military strategy long into the future. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the militarisation of resilience bears particular implications for Arctic states in the Nordic region, situated on or near the Russian border. Resilience, in the military-strategic context, refers, at its simplest, to the willingness and capacity of ordinary people to fight their own wars of defense against aggressors. A resilient people does not rely on a state’s military to defend it, it gets on with doing that by itself without expecting the intervention of some greater power or source of security, such as NATO, to save them. Consequently, the demand for resilience is directed not only at national armed forces, but populations, civil society groups, families and individuals. Increasing the resilience of society and populations to shocks and unforeseen events has been an aim of states and governments for some time. However, the way in which states now stress military invasion and interstate warfare as key potential shocks which society needs to prepare for indicates a new era for resilience thinking and practice. The militarisation of resilience means also the militarisation of social needs, capacities and vulnerabilities. Social science and other fields of thinking are yet to acknowledge and engage with the full implications of this new phase in the development of resilience discourses and ideologies.

Taking these observations into account, we are open to the full range of potential questions and inquiries among which we ask: What are the rationalities fuelling the merging of concepts of resilience with the military-strategies of states? What implications does NATO’s embrace of resilience have for social futures in the Nordic region especially? Does the linkage between resilience and militarisation bear certain Arctic characteristics? The workshop invites papers that in one way or another examine resilience and militarisation. Theoretical, empirical or methodological papers reflecting these topics are welcome.

The two-day workshop will include paper presentations and a keynote talk by Senior Researcher Robin May Schott, Danish Institute for International Studies. She will talk about her new edited volume (2022) Resilience: Militaries and Militarization.

There is some travel funding available for early career scholars affiliated with Nordic universities (doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers max. 5 years after completing their PhD). The aim is to support the attendance of scholars from a variety of Nordic countries and universities.

Please send your abstracts (max. 300 words) by 14 June 2024 to powers@ulapland.fi
If you wish to apply for travel funding, please include the following information in your abstract submission:
- description of your career stage
- estimation of your travel costs to Rovaniemi (tickets & accommodation)
Please note that there is no participation fee for the workshop.

For more information www.ulapland.fi/powers

Welcome!
Workshop organisers Marjo Lindroth, Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen and Julian Reid (University of Lapland), Frank Sejersen (University of Copenhagen) and Claes Tängh Wrangel (Uppsala University)