La guerre de près et de loin XXe-XXIe siècle [War seen from near and far, 20th–21st century]

Like all social phenomena, war is not simply a fact that stands alone. It is primarily an event experienced and reported by witnesses, victims and protagonists of all sorts and standing. The ways in which wars are experienced and recounted by eyewitnesses, victims and protagonists largely reflect and transmit individual and collective representations, and are determined by the prevailing political, economic, religious and social environment, in the broadest sense. How is war represented? How are the protagonists of war represented, and how do they represent themselves? What image of the enemy is collectively elaborated and shared? How are representations of the enemy and of war constructed, disseminated and weaponized to gain support, mobilize people, produce consent or rejection, and in the end erect a standard of what is just and what is unjust? This work is a reflection on these questions, compiled by the Sorbonne War Studies in response to a two-pronged challenge.

The first task is to grasp the representation of war as both a consensual perception and a manipulated projection. This rich discussion is nourished by the contributions of specialists in a range of disciplines in the human and social sciences, including geography, history, history of art and archeology, and sociology. Their work spans a number of countries and geographic regions (Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa, the western Balkan countries, eastern Europe, the Maghreb, and the Middle East). The second task is to update and decipher the images and communication delivered under the constraints of war, to tease out different viewpoints on contemporary violent conflicts, near or far. In some cases observers have experienced combat from very close up. Three guiding perspectives frame this reflection on the representations of war, which are approached as social and political constructs, and the fruit of multiple transactions.

The authors focus on the impact of technical upheaval, on the justification of military operations abroad (particulary of the French military), and on the pertinence of the notion of territory to describe and interpret war and conflict.