WARFUN Podcast

WARFUN•www.cmi.no

Welcome to the WARFUN Podcast. WARFUN is a research project funded by the European Research Council and led by Antonio De Lauri at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. The project investigates the plurality of experiences, the emotional implications, and the narratives of war from the perspective of those who fight. Through these conversations, the WARFUN podcast aims to offer a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be at war and how war blurs the boundaries between the extraordinary and the ordinary. WARFUN is an ERC Consolidator Grant project (ID: 101001106).

Last refreshed: July 14th, 2025 at 2:28 AM ⓘ

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Episodes

14 - Humour, War and International Relations

In this episode, Eva Johais discusses with Christopher Browning and James Brassett what a focus on humour reveals about international politics. With (international) politics increasingly becoming a site of ‘comedification’, they make compelling arguments why humour should be taken seriously. Be it its function as a mechanism of anxiety management, a tool of both governance and resistance, or its role in constituting political community, a focus on humour sheds light on both high politics and the...

Jun 30, 2025•1 hr 6 min

13 - Partisan Struggles of the Past, Present, Future

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Gal Kirn talk about the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle. Discussing the Partisan art created during the war, especially on the territory of Slovenia, they consider how wartime art production supported the resistance to fascism and complemented it as well as what its values are relevant today and how it could remain relevant in the future. Gal Kirn holds a PhD in Intercultural Studies of Ideas from the University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia). He is currently a ...

May 08, 2024•47 min

12 - The ‘bad’ anthropologist? A conversation with Thomas Randrup Pedersen about military anthropology and soldiering in the post-9/11 era.

In this episode, Heidi Mogstad and Thomas Randrup Pedersen discuss anthropological attitudes to research on the military and some of the ethical and methodological complexities of studying and writing about soldiers and warfare. Pedersen shares experiences from his fieldwork with combat troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and reflects on his turn to existential anthropology. Mogstad and Pedersen also discuss some of their overlapping findings, including soldierly tropes of adventure, fun and post-war...

Apr 11, 2024•41 min

11 – Frames and experience of soldiering in Germany. A conversation with Maren Tomforde

This episode first traces how public perceptions of soldiers have changed over time, including the recent reappraisal of the status of the armed forces in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The episode also sheds light on how soldiers experience civil-military relations. Against this background, the conversation revolves around German society’s relation to war. The conversation then digs into ostensibly contrasting realms of soldier experience. It addresses mechanisms to deal with fightin...

Feb 28, 2024•34 min

10 - On Many Roles of Music during the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1995). A Conversation with Petra Hamer

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Petra Hamer talk about musicking in the besieged Sarajevo. The conversation covers many related aspects, from practical issues arising from the lack of electricity to the activities of musicians who stayed and those who fled as well as music-related activities of the soldiers. Petra talks about the omnipresence of music in the city and the reasons why it was completely expected. Petra Hamer is an ethnologist and cultural anthropologist researching popular music a...

Feb 21, 2024•30 min

09 - Living for a better future at the El Shatt refugee camp

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Florian Bieber talk about the El Shatt refugee camp in Egypt that operated during the final two years of World War II. The conversation provides an overview of the functioning of this camp, the life of the people in it, and the aspects that made it a well-organized as well as a joyful establishment, which was different from other refugee camps. You can see images from the camp in the WarFun visual archive . Florian Bieber is a political scientist and historian wo...

Dec 05, 2023•24 min

08 - Fun and the soldier trophy selfies. A Conversation with Elissa Mailänder

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Elissa Mailänder talk about Elissa's research of soldier amateur photography, particularly during the Second World War. The focus of their conversation is what can be discovered about soldiers and the ways they had fun through these seemingly banal tokens of war. Elissa Mailänder is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at Sciences Po in Paris. She is an expert on violence, gender and sexuality; material culture; and the history of everyday life. In her res...

Oct 05, 2023•21 min

07 - Musical entertainment in the British Armed Forces during the Great War (1914-1918)

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Emma Hanna talk about wartime entertainment and recreation in the British Armed Forces during the First World War. The focus of the conversation is on the relevance of musical activities to rank-and-file soldiers and their impact on soldiers’ morale and well-being. Emma Hanna is a lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Kent in Great Britain. On related topics she has published several articles and book chapters as well as two monographs, The Grea...

Jul 27, 2023•20 min

06 – War as a game: The playful aspects of the Daring Ones’ military and paramilitary experiences, 1917-1922

In this episode, Blasco Sciarrino presents the Italian elite army corps known as the Daring Ones (Arditi), which fought mainly in the First World War. He discusses how having fun increased their fighting power in the course of war and their subsequent paramilitary activism, and considers if the playfulness and collective pursuits increased not just the Daring Ones’ military prowess, but also several of these men’s resolve to use violence. Blasco Sciarrino is a history teaching fellow and researc...

Apr 27, 2023•34 min

05 - Theatre in the context of the Yugoslav Wars. A conversation with Jana Dolečki

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Jana Dolečki discuss theatre in the context of the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars. The conversation focuses on the theatrical performances of the so-called frontline theaters and in the theaters outside war zones (in Zagreb and Belgrade). In the second part of the conversation, they consider some more general claims about theatre and its merits in the times of war. Jana Dolečki is a theatrologist, journalist and a conductor of two ch...

Mar 29, 2023•24 min

04 – Croatian veterans’ serious war games. A conversation with Sven Milekić

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Sven Milekić talk about the activities of Croatian veterans of the 1990s conflict active in veterans’ associations. The conversation focuses on the veterans' strategies of self-presentation to the public and instances where the observer can glimpse pleasure despite their emphasis on severity and sacrifice. Sven Milekić is a Doctoral candidate enrolled in the PhD programme at the Department of History at Maynooth University as recipient of the Irish Research Counc...

Jan 23, 2023•33 min

03 – Adventure, precarity and colonial nostalgia: A conversation with Jethro Norman about European ex-soldiers turned private security contractors in East Africa

In this episode, Heidi Mogstad talks to Jethro Norman about his ethnographic research with European veterans working and living as private military and security contractors in East Africa. Jethro argues for the importance of taking seriously the voices and experiences of veterans and ‘mercenaries’, including their attachments to and critiques of their own societies, the military, and national and colonial history. He also unsettles conventional ideas and stereotypes about contractors, war, and i...

Jan 02, 2023•28 min

02 - Consumerism in the service of pleasure and fun during the Vietnam War. A conversation with Meredith Lair

In this episode, Iva Jelušić and Meredith Lair talk about the life of the US soldiers in army bases during the Vietnam War. The conversation first focuses on some of the findings from Lair’s book Armed with Abundance: Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War (2011), which examines the non-combat experiences of American soldiers in Vietnam. The second part of the conversation brings to the fore her current research, including soldier photography during the same war. Meredith Lair is an Assoc...

Dec 19, 2022•40 min

01 – Is there a place for fun and pleasure in war research? A conversation with Catherine Lutz

In this episode, Eva Johais and Catherine Lutz discuss whether we can and should study fun in the context of war. This means dealing with moral and conceptual questions of conducting research on war. Why does Catherine Lutz call for “decentering the battlefield”? How can our own moralities inhibit our understanding of war as a central phenomenon in the contemporary world? And what forms of pleasure do people feel when they go to war? During this conversation, the concept of war is also linked to...

Sep 27, 2022•28 min

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