Theme:
6. Contested Pasts & Presents
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Weaving Defense, Landscape and Social Organization from Antiquity to Early Modern Times
Content:
This session explores the physical remains of civil defence; the relations between defensive structures, social organization and contested spaces and landscapes from antiquity to modern times. War and threats of attack extend beyond the activities of specialized military forces. They include all groups of people engaged in and affected by them. Thus, defensive works do not necessarily belong to a strictly military sphere of society. Defensive structures and practices are created in interplay with varying social organizations, and found for instance in farming societies characterized by unstable political bonds and alliances, and societies engaged in or threatened by plundering warfare. Aspects such as social, military, territorial and fiscal organization both activate and are activated by investment in and maintenance of defensive structures, particularly in relation to states and state formations. Recognising how, when and where such defence structures worked is fundamental to understanding systems of military organization, defensive capabilities, and the nature of hostilities in the past.
This session will examine the problems and potentials of studying defence structures as part of social organization. What are the archaeological signatures of defence structures? How do defensive structures interact with the landscapes and social and military organizations of which they take part? How does the routinization of war and the threat of attack affect people and their institutions?
To this session we welcome studies from scholars applying new methodological and theoretical insights to military geography; the organization and form of defensive structures as a result of external threats, and the dynamics of social organization. We welcome papers that explore the wider landscapes of military action, including physical
monuments (e.g. beacons, lookouts, hillforts, dikes, earthworks), and the social organization of civil defence landscapes.
Keywords:
defence, contested spaces and landscapes, military organisation, military geography, civil defense
Session associated with MERC:
yes
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Marie Ødegaard (Norway) 1
Co-organisers:
Ingrid Ystgaard (Norway) 2
Laurine Albris (Denmark) 3
Affiliations:
1. Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger
2. Norwegian University of Science and Technology
3. National Museum of Denmark
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT