Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Naomi Pendle
(University of Bath)
Martin Ochaya (Catholic University of South Sudan)
Send message to Convenors
- Chair:
-
Kate Woodthorpe
(University of Bath)
- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Crisis, conflict, and humanitarian response
Short Abstract:
Armed conflicts and crises are often synonymous with excess mortality. Therefore, dealing with difficult deaths is unavoidable. In this panel we explore how people navigate difficult deaths and their aftermath, and what socio-political dynamics this entrenches or challenges.
Description:
Deaths during conflict and crisis are not only difficult because they are excessive, but also because they do not fit people’s hopes of when, where and how they should die. Combatants and civilians do not only die from direct violence, but because of a crisis-induced lack of food, water and medicine. This panel pays attention to the dead and the aftermath of death to help us understand living people’s experiences of armed conflict and crisis, the politics at play during these crises, but also how people navigate and reimaging the future despite loss. Literature from Sociology, Anthropology and Death Studies has already taught us that responses to death are always shaped by and, in turn, reshape society, culture and politics. In contexts of political violence, bodies (of the living and dead), as well as ghosts, memories and ‘emotive materialities’, become a particularly important political space. War-time bodies can shape global politics, and everyday struggles for power and equity. In this panel we invite papers from a mixture of disciplines that explore how dealing with death and its aftermath during conflict and crisis allow (or hinder) civilians and combatants themselves to navigate the often inequitable, hierarchical, predatory, future-less politics of crisis.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Nurses faced a dual burden during the COVID-19 crisis in Fiji, caring for dying patients in overwhelmed hospitals while balancing personal loss. This paper explores the experiences of Fijian nurses during and after the pandemic, highlighting the need for support systems for frontline workers.
Paper long abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the vulnerabilities of health systems in low- and middle-income countries, with Fiji reporting the highest pandemic-related mortality rate in the Pacific by late 2021. Nurses were at the frontlines of this crisis, experiencing the double burden of surging patient deaths in under-resourced settings, while also struggling to manage personal loss and heightened familial responsibilities.
This professional and personal grief was compounded by chronic workforce shortages and challenging working conditions that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the health system under extreme pressure, nurses assumed new roles beyond clinical care, including preparing food, managing laundry services, sterilising hospital wards, and preparing and accompanying the deceased for burial.
This paper presents preliminary findings from a case study investigating the experiences of nurses who worked during the pandemic. In early 2025, group talanoa (discussion) sessions were conducted with nurses across Fiji to explore their changing roles. Nurses described the emotional weight of caring for dying patients who were not permitted to have family present, the disruptions to deeply embedded cultural traditions of mourning and farewelling the dead, and the ongoing emotional scars of the pandemic – which are still raw almost four years after the height of the crisis in Fiji in 2021.
This paper contributes to broader discussions on death and crisis by illustrating how pandemic-induced disruptions to professional and cultural practices reshaped experiences of loss, care, and resilience. Furthermore, the research highlights the need for more robust support systems for frontline workers navigating future crises.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines gender-based violence against civilian men and boys in the specific form of gendercide in the context of terrorism which has received minimal scholarly attention in terrorism studies. This is explored with the case of Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgency in the troubled Lake Chad Region.
Paper long abstract:
Although gender-based violence against men and women in the form of sexual violence has been examined in the literature on Islamist insurgency in the Lake Chad region―the Sahelian zone at the conjunction of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad―minimal scholarly attention has been given to gendercide, that is, the gender-selective massacres of civilian men and boys by the terrorist groups. The limitation of gender-based violence to sexual violence in the gory Islamist insurgency forecloses scholars from problematising the myriad ways men/boys are not invariably perpetrators but victims of gender-based violence beyond the conventional emphasis on sexual violence. This article transcends the existing scholarly fixation on sexual violence to critically assess the gender-selective killing of civilian men and boys by the terrorist groups as a strategy to vitiate competition from potential combatants. Drawing on scholarship on gendercide which frames the phenomenon as emblematic of gender-based violence and on twenty qualitative interviews conducted in Nigeria with victims/survivors and ex-Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters, this article assesses how and why assumptions of gender are pivotal to the selective massacres and victimisation of civilian men and boys in conflict situations and how local communities coped with the gender-selective massacres of men. This article expands understanding of the victimisation/victimhood of men and boys in gender-based terrorist violence.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the unique case of coping and survival among Nigerian military widows of the Boko Haram conflict. It looks at their modes and methods of daily survival in the absence of state, associational, and family support after their husbands' deaths.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the unique case of coping and survival among Nigerian military widows of the Boko Haram conflict. It looks at their modes and methods of daily survival in the absence of state, associational, and family support after their husbands' deaths. It also examines how they have managed the cultural demands of widowhood in a patriarchal African society that wields different forms of structural and cultural violence against women.
This paper finds that women largely relied on their extended families and social charities for support. This was in the face of limited state and associational support provided by their Association, the Nigerian military widows Association. While families provided bonding capital that helped women cope and survive, this was limited by the cultural demands placed on widows in African societies. The bonding social capital provided by families was often eroded by the traditional practices that occasioned widowhood, such as property inheritance, forced remarriage, and other forms of social vulnerability and stigmatization. Hence, the women resorted to other coping resources, such as spirituality, resilience, and personal strength to cope with the loss. However, their narratives as widows of fallen soldiers exemplify one of neglect and abandonment by the Nigerian state and society.
Paper short abstract:
Since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect, the internally displaced Gazans have just one thought on their mind: returning to the north, finding the bodies of their loved ones and giving them a dignified burial. This paper examines how these Gazans navigate this process.
Paper long abstract:
The recent 15-month Israeli war on Gaza (2023-25) has led to unfathomable levels of death and to a massive indescribable destruction in Gaza. Official counts point to 46,707 Gazans killed and over 11,160 are missing or buried under the rubble. The war has also left 90% of Gaza’s population internally displaced and more than 80% of buildings in ruins. When the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect on 19 January 2025, those displaced to the south of Gaza have been returning to the north; to their homes, now mostly destroyed, and to their dead who still lie beneath the rubble. The one thought they have on their mind is to find the bodies of their loved ones and give them a dignified burial. Only now the grieving can begin, or as one mother put it “now we can grieve.” For 15 months, there was no space for grieving and mourning; the fear of imminent death consumed every moment. Based on UN reports, first-hand journalists’ reports from Gaza, digital ethnography (Gazans’ testimonies on social media), this paper examines how the Gazans navigated death and its aftermath—finding the bodies of their loved ones and giving them a dignified burial. It argues that Gazans have experienced unspeakable pain and carry the burden of caring for those who have survived and for those who are buried under the rubble.
Paper short abstract:
In South Sudan, people have died during wartime famines. In this paper I explore the social and religious meanings of these deaths from the perspective of death practitioners such as religious leaders. I argue that death rituals have changed because of these famine-time deaths.
Paper long abstract:
Armed Conflict and crises have been associated with challenges that include population displacement, the destruction of assets, the disruption of social and economic systems, and with death and injuries. South Sudan has been a theatre of violent conflict and deaths since signing of the CPA in 2005 and despite achieving its independence in 2011. Episodes of both national and subnational violence have always resulted in massive loss of lives as it pitied regions and communities against one another. Furthermore, in recent years, in pockets across South Sudan, armed conflict has caused many deaths that have been associated with starvation.
This paper aims to explore how hunger related deaths are handled by religious death practitioners, in terms of burial practices and how meanings of such deaths are being socially constructed and interpreted.
Considering how religious beliefs and spiritual agency inform people’s experiences about death and how meanings are socially constructed provides insights into how South Sudanese make sense of death and crises associated with armed conflict and starvation. This paper argues that hunger related death due to armed conflict in South Sudan has evoked new religious burial practices and shaped people’s perceptions and interpretations of deaths. The paper draws on data collected from South Sudan between January and June 2025, through interviews with religious leaders and personal experience as a death practitioner.
Paper short abstract:
Calls for reparations after severe crimes are louder than ever, yet their consequences remain underexplored. We analyse the ICC’s first reparations programme for victims of the 2003 Bogoro massacre, examining how reparations shape grief, justice, resilience, and socio-political inequalities.
Paper long abstract:
Calls for reparations in the aftermath of severe crimes—genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—are louder than ever, with courts increasingly ordering reparation programmes for victims. However, research on the effects of such schemes is limited, raising the question: how much do reparations repair? This paper examines the socio-political dynamics of reparations, focusing on measures ordered by the International Criminal Court for victims of the 2003 Bogoro massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The massacre, perpetrated by Germain Katanga and the Forces de Résistance Patriotique d’Ituri, left survivors and communities scarred by excessive violence, displacement, and socio-economic disruption. The ICC’s first reparations programme offers a lens to explore the consequences of reparations and the im/possibility of redress after severe crimes.
Drawing on qualitative interviews and quantitative data from the ICC-commissioned evaluation, the paper explores the interplay between grief, justice, and resilience. It discusses conflicting rationales shaping the reparation order and shows how the reparations process itself became a contested political space, reflecting broader inequities and the fragility of reparations in a conflict context.
While reparations provided symbolic recognition and material assistance, they proved limited in addressing entrenched trauma and inequality. Beneficiaries often viewed reparations as incomplete, given ongoing insecurity, systemic poverty, and lack of trust in institutions. This paper highlights how survivors negotiated these gaps, finding solace in community, faith, and symbolic acknowledgement of their suffering. It interrogates how reparative mechanisms can empower survivors while perpetuating socio-political hierarchies, offering critical insights into justice and resilience.
Paper short abstract:
Northern Uganda has been affected by armed conflict for decades, affecting relations with the dead. This article overviews those changes among neighbouring ethnic groups.
Paper long abstract:
Northern Uganda is a place in which spiritual forces, including ghosts, are commonly experienced in daily life. That has always been the case, but metaphysical presences have a history, and the ways that living people are affected are diverse and have been subject to change. Among many groups, including the Lugbara, Acholi and Madi, the role of male ancestors was central to the moral ordering of lineages. However, wild spirits are common, especially where there has been armed conflict and social upheavals. These ghosts are beyond the control of male elders and may be mediated by diviners and mediums, commonly referred to as ‘witchdoctors’. Also, some individuals have been inspired by their spirits to lead violent cults, such as the Lord’s Resistance Army. Meanwhile, Christian churches have become powerful actors in the region, and divinely inspired Pentecostalism has become widespread. Christian activists have sought to establish authority over communication with the spirit world, often castigating the activities of others as Satanic. This chapter discusses these matters, drawing my own research in the region since the 1980s