Visualising War and Peace

This episode is part of a mini series exploring forced displacement as one of the many legacies of conflict. Alice interviews Prof. Alison Phipps, a Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow and UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Language and the Arts. Alongside her academic work, Alison is Co-Convener of the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network, an Ambassador for the Scottish Refugee Council, and she also chairs the New Scots Core Group for Refugee Integration in partnership with Scottish Government and the Scottish Refugee Council, among other high-profile advocacy and policy-making roles. Alison is in regular demand as a speaker and commentator, especially on refugee issues; and in 2012, she was awarded an OBE for Services to Education and Intercultural and Interreligious Studies.
In the podcast, we talk about contemporary discourses of migration, in particular the dehumanising tropes that are used to generate fear and a sense of threat ('swarms', 'invasion', 'floods', etc). Alison reflects on the importance of decolonising the language we use to talk about refugees and asylum seekers, and she helps us see the immense value of going to other languages to explore how they visualise and articulate migration and mobility. Words are world-building; but the complexity of meaning that we find when we compare expressions in different languages helps us to nuance our understanding and rethink the attitudes that our own words embody. This in turn can help decontaminate hostile discourses and de-escalate the wars being waged against people whom we are taught (by news headlines and political rhetoric) to feel afraid of.
This leads to discussion of the impact that language learning can have on refugee integration. Crucially, Alison advocates for host populations learning refugee languages, and not simply the other way around. She talks particularly about a project (run by colleague Giovanna Fassetta) in which Scottish primary school teachers learn Arabic from trauma-informed colleagues in Gaza, so that they can sympathise and celebrate with refugee children in their classrooms in their own language. We also talk more generally about what host populations can learn from refugee communities about how to handle different kinds of trauma and how to care for trauma-affected people, with refugees leading the way as experts-by-experience in this space. As Alison outlines, a well-thought-through integration strategy generates an environment of mutual learning, rather than imposing an expectation on refugees (who are handling many different challenges all at once) to do all the learning and adaptation themselves.
Along the way, we discuss the role that the arts more broadly can play in deepening understanding, reducing fear and defusing hostile rhetoric around forced migration. Alison has a wealth of expertise of working through drama, film and other art forms, and she reflects on what it takes to amplify indigenous voices and empower people with lived experience of forced migration to take charge of the discourse themselves.
We hope you enjoy the episode. To find out more about our wider project on Visualising Forced Migration, please visit our website. If you have any questions or want to contribute to our ongoing discussions, please do get in touch. You can follow us on social media or contact us directly by emailing us at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!

Our theme music was composed by Jonathan Young.

The show was mixed by Zofia Guertin.

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.
Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

In this episode Alice and Nicolas interview two University of St Andrews colleagues, Prof. Anthony Lang Jr of the School of International Relations, and Dr Rory Cox, Senior Lecturer in the School of History. Tony’s research focuses on how politics, law and ethics intersect at the global level, with a particular emphasis on human rights, international obligations and the just war tradition. Rory’s research is centred on the ethics of war, the history of violence, and intellectual history, and he explores these topics with an impressively wide chronological range, including ancient Egyptian Just War doctrine, medieval military history, debates on the use of torture, and the history of terrorism.
In the podcast we discuss the different ways in which communities and individuals have visualised and articulated the complex relationship between war and justice. Tony and Rory talk us through some of the ideas associated with jus ad bellum (justifications for going to war), jus in bello (laws of conduct during war) and jus post bellum (the responsibilities that states/combatants might have in the aftermath of conflict). Rory stresses how varied different strands of thought within the Just War Tradition have been, taking us back into its deep history and challenging the myth that it is a product of purely 'Western' thinking. Rather than approaching it as a 'doctrine' (i.e. a set of principles that can be applied in any situation), he encourages us to think of the Just War Tradition as posing a set of important moral and ethical questions, to which there are no clear-cut or universal answers.
This gets us talking about storytelling - the narratives that individuals and states have told to 'justify' their involvement or behaviour in different conflicts. We discuss the visualisation involved in justifying means via ends, and Tony reflects on the relationship between justifications of war and the fairy tale tradition (invoking Tolkein's idea that all fairy tales are 'eucatastrophes': stories with happy endings which involve great peril along the way). Rory highlights the key role that language plays in colouring how 'just' or 'unjust' we think different conflicts are - and, indeed, how we conduct them. We consider the impact which Just War thinking (on the one hand) and the political justification of a conflict (on the other) can have on soldiers' sense of identity and behaviours. We also talk about the role played by law courts, the press, social media, the film industry and gaming in shaping public perceptions of jus ad bellum, jus in bello and jus post bellum - and how public consensus in turn shapes the stories that policy-makers tell and the decisions they take.
As Tony and Rory stress, the Just War Tradition is deployed in culturally specific and highly subjective ways. It sometimes helps prevent conflict, or mitigates its impacts, or holds people to account afterwards; but it can also be manipulated by influential figures within a community to persuade others to visualise war (or 'resistance' or 'terrorism', or torture, or 'the enemy', or the prospect of peace) in particular, self-serving ways.
We hope you enjoy the discussion. 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 historian Dr Omar Mohammed, founder of the acclaimed Mosul Eye blog. When ISIS captured Mosul in 2014, Omar began posting regular updates to keep people informed and to counter misinformation – and his blog became a vital source of information both for those within the city and the wider world. He posted regularly throughout the occupation and liberation of Mosul, and has since turned his attention to Mosul’s recovery, using the blog to promote cross-cultural understanding as well as raising Mosul’s profile internationally. Mosul Eye has a lot to teach us about representations of conflict, particularly those that are produced while a war is ongoing, and it is a real testament to what the public documentation of a war can achieve, in the aftermath as well as during a conflict.
In the podcast, Omar explains that he began keeping a diary to document what life was like on the ground during conflict after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. However, it was only in 2014 when ISIS/Daesh captured Mosul, that he started blogging publicly, with no idea at the time how long his blog - or the occupation - would last. As a historian, he wanted to provide the people of Mosul and wider audiences with accurate accounts of events as they were unfolding in real time; but he also used the blog to preserve the names of victims and build up a reliable record for posterity, so that future generations could understand what went on. Crucially, his blog posts narrated many small, everyday details, painting a holistic picture of the conflict rather than focusing on major events. His correction of fake news and exposure of atrocities meant that he and the blog were targeted by Daesh, but he persevered despite the risks, viewing his writing as a way to fight back.
Over time, Mosul Eye became so well known that major news organisations turned to it to verify or flesh out their stories, and Omar was able to leverage the growing influence he had to help rescue people and families from the city and collect books for the University's stricken library. Since Mosul's liberation, Omar has used his position to put Mosul on the global map in positive ways, building bridges between different communities and kick-starting a major tree-planting programme, to help the people of Mosul visualise a greener, more peaceful future and to connect them to wider efforts to address climate change. His blog has helped him and others to grasp the profound and sometimes unseen destruction that war brings; but it also testifies to the power of history writing and digital media to promote peace, healing and renewal.
Among other questions, Alice asked:

• what prompted Omar to begin blogging as 'Mosul Eye' in 2014 and what his initial goal was
• what aspects of the occupation and liberation he decided to focus on, and why
• how the people of Mosul, the media and the wider international community responded to Mosul Eye
• what role his blog played in the 'information war' which accompanies conflict in the digital age
• how different live blogging is from writing the history of a conflict with the benefit of hindsight
• what role blogging can play in helping people visualise peace/renewal as well as war

We hope you enjoy the episode! To find out more about Mosul Eye, please visit the website. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please have a look on the University of St Andrews Visualising War website.
Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin

This episode is a follow-up to an earlier conversation with Anne Lene Stein which focused on peace activism in Israel and Palestine. We invited her back onto the podcast to share another important strand of research with us, based on her recent work with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
As several of our other episodes discuss, forced displacement is a recurring legacy of conflict all around the world. In recent years, wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ukraine, the DRC and Sudan (to name just a few) have displaced millions of people from their homes; and in recent months hundreds of thousands more people have been displaced within Gaza, sometimes multiple times. This is not a new phenomenon; as Anne underlines, Palestinians have been seeking sanctuary in many different places, for many years - including in Lebanon, where some Palestinians have been living as refugees for multiple generations.
Anne begins the conversation by explaining what drove so many Palestinian refugees to Lebanon in the first place, over 70 years ago; and how many continue to live in supposedly temporary refugee camps around the country. She describes the challenging living conditions in these camps, the lack of freedom and rights for their inhabitants, and the ways in which the camps are governed and controlled by both internal and external forces.
This leads to a particular focus of Anne's research: how young people, born and raised in these camps, construct their identities and visualise their futures. For many displaced Palestinians, retaining refugee status is crucial in holding on to the right to return home some day; but this comes with significant costs, perpetuating poverty and disenfranchisement. Anne discusses some of the ways in which young people in refugee camps in Lebanon try to overcome the stigma attached to being displaced, pushing back against dominant narratives; how they use different media and methods to imagine 'home' in new ways, overcoming the 'politics of temporality'; and how they employ everyday acts of resistance to exercise agency and take more control over their lives. This gets us talking about peace imaginaries as well as habits of visualising forced displacement.
We end the episode by considering what lessons we might learn from the experiences of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as we seek better ways to support people newly displaced by conflict. As Anne underlines, we need to find political - not just humanitarian - solutions; and we should invest in solutions that maximise refugee rights and avoid re-victimising people.
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