The Scuttlebutt | Season 9 Episode 6
Charles Warner is a veteran and social anthropologist studying at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
His research interests primarily revolve around war veterans (a.k.a. the emerging field of “Veterans Studies”), strategic peacebuilding, and post-conflict dialogue/resolution in Southeast Europe. Within this research, he incorporates or centers visual art and poetry/prose-poetry/narrative nonfiction to express ethnographic engagements, research insights, temporality and polyvocal (re)presentation. His PhD project, tentatively titled “The Veterans Eclectic: Engaging voices of past war & visions of future peace in Former Yugoslavia,” is guided by two research questions:
1) Do former combatants embrace the identity of “veteran,” maintain veteran-oriented organizations, and connect internationally after the battlefields have gone silent? If yes, how?
2) How might mapping and understanding cross-border veteran relationships influence current or new approaches to peace and stability between former battlefield foes?
In pursuit of these questions, Charlie conducted two+ years of relational ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation alongside war veterans in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Kosovo. This fieldwork has generated new insights into veteran culture and relations, their social visibility (or lack thereof), transnational relations, performative materiality, and veteran considerations of the future. Speaking more broadly, this research seeks to strengthen collaborations between social anthropology and the political sciences while contributing to Veterans Studies (thus challenging North Atlantic-centric narratives and hegemony within an emerging field) and informing new paradigms of peacebuilding in former Yugoslavia and beyond.
The research shared by Charlie Warner with the Scuttlebutt podcast is supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the University of Leuven, Belgium.
The Veterans Eclectic – theveteranseclectic.wordpress.com/
Ku Leuven – soc.kuleuven.be/anthropology/staff/00122596
Thank you to our sponsors:
UPMC for Life: www.upmchealthplan.com/medicare/learn/plans/learn-about-veterans-resources.aspx/
Tobacco Free Adagio Health: tobaccofree.adagiohealth.org/
To find out more information about the Veterans Breakfast Club and view our upcoming schedule of online and in-person events, visit our website at: www.veteransbreakfastclub.org/
#podcast #zoom #scuttlebutt #thescuttlebutt #humor #storytelling #headlines #news #oralhistory #militaryhistory #roundtable #navy #army #airforce #marinecorps #marines #military #coastguard #veteran #veterans #veteransbreakfastclub #vbc #nonprofit #501c3 #veterans #veteran #vet #militaryhistory #usarmy #army #vietnam #usnavy #navy #pilot #airforce #veteranowned #coastguard #aviators #militaryveterans #Iraq #vietnamveterans #veteransstories #veteranshistory #veteranshistoryproject #veteranstravel #veteranstrips #veteranshistoricaltours #veteransoralhistory #militaryretirees #armyretirees #navyretirees #warstories #airforce #vietnamwar #veteraninterview
