Title: Violence between war and peace: agentivity and gender of intersecting processes between intimate and collective levels in Central Europe

 The thesis will focus on the intersection of intimate and collective dimensions of discourses, practices and effects of violence. It will mobilize the study of the actors, especially from a gender perspective.

The framework chosen is Central Europe in the 19th and 21st centuries. Central Europe is under­stood here as the area between the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Sea. This region was and is marked by recurrent violence, both in peace and war, the difference being sometimes tenuous. Yet "brutalization" and "bloodlands", the two major paradigms used to shape retrospectively the way societies and individuals relate to violence by emphasizing the porositý between times of peace and times of war, neglect the strong gender dimension. These paradigms reduce the com­plexity of ac­tions and actors. Yet this complexity and the rhythms, intensity, and nature of the phases of vio­len­ce imply grasping the emotional and intellectual accumulations that clearly appear in times when violence reemerges, whether repression, private violence, or war. The same is true, conversely, for the distancing and the work of reparation or compensation associated with violence, both private and public. Thus, the victims of rape, during wars in particular, are often subsequently victims in their own society of family and social ostracism. The connections between sex and of politics are key when considering the porosity of times, between peace and war. It is therefore possible to ques­tion the way in which war crimes trials can contribute to reactivating and/or distancing violence as a political horizon, and participate in the gendered reconstruction of societies after the war, or even decades later.

This proposal for a thesis topic is presented by a specialist in the history of security in Central Europe and a specialist in gender and violence in relation to wars. It is therefore widely open to any approach with a historical dimension (not exclusive of others).

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