Written by Oliver Parken.<\/p>\n
Space plays a central role in the conduct and experience of war. Combat and violence are words which bring immediate associations to physical and imagined space\u2013\u2013the First World War and the visceral imagery of the \u2018Western Front\u2019, for example. Yet as warfare transformed and expanded during the twentieth-century, so too did its spatial dimensions. \u00a0Organised jointly by Oliver Parken and Ellie Matthews, \u2018Spaces of War: Spatial Perspectives of Modern War and Conflict\u2019 sought to question the relationship between space<\/a> and place<\/a> in the context of modern warfare\u2013\u2013exposing the myriad \u2018sites\u2019 through which space runs as a conceptual theme for scholars working on modern war and conflict. Although it was anticipated the event would stretch across a range of contexts, particularly in terms of time and culture, the final programme of papers focused on the twentieth-century and the experience\/aftermath of the World Wars.<\/p>\n In order to achieve a cross-disciplinary discussion, the event ran across four thematic panels. The first explored \u2018Sites of Experience\u2019 within Nazi\/occupied Europe. Nigel Perrin (University of Kent) used the example of Parisian cafes (1940\u20131944) as gateways to exploring connections between everyday life, resistance, and military occupation in intimate settings. Kate Docking (University of Kent) mapped the gendering of medical roles at Ravensbr\u00fcck concentration camp, highlighting the camp\u2019s place as a site where women\u2019s roles could transcend wider gendered expectations. Daan de Leeuw (Clark University), combined maps with the detailed histories of two Dutch Jewish slave labourers (Levie (Lou) van Coevorden and Sara Kiek) through time and space; focusing on how Nazi policies regarding the allocation of labourers for the armaments industry affected individual lives. Connecting spatial analysis with approaches to \u2018everyday life\u2019, life histories, and historical constructions of gender, the panel revealed the significance of space as a conceptual tool in understanding contemporaries\u2019 experience of war and trauma.<\/p>\n The second panel focused on \u2018Representations: Visual Culture and Museums\u2019. Jonathan Black (Kingston University) considered the images produced by British artists C.R.W. Nevinson and Eric Kennington. Their depiction of the \u2018haunted\u2019, \u2018liminal\u2019 world behind the lines during the Great War reveals a willingness to visualise supernatural vistas of war by both artists and official war culture. Peter Johnston (National Army Museum, London) unpacked the challenges of \u2018displaying\u2019 war in the context of museums, offering insights into how such challenges can be overcome by curators and researchers. The panellists pulled attention to how \u2018space\u2019 is not only depicted within visual culture but is also created when material artefacts of war are put on display\u2013\u2013a complex relationship in which historians, curators, and the public are implicit.<\/p>\n The third panel unearthed the more secretive world of \u2018Spyscapes, Networks, and Intelligence\u2019. Chris Smith (Coventry University) delved into the memory and mythology around Bletchley Park\u2013\u2013a space which, despite becoming synonymous with British military and technological innovation, remained dormant within the popular memory of the war until the 1970s. Geographer and historian Derwin Gregory (University of East Anglia) used maps to assess the global infrastructure of Britain\u2019s Special Operations Executive (1940\u20131946), pulling localised and national understandings of the SOE into wider, international dimensions. Claire M. Hubbard-Hall (Bishop Grosseteste University) considered the significance of geographic location and its influence on German intelligence organisation and operations during the Second World War. The lack of visible front lines or arenas associated with \u2018secret\u2019 warfare was, she argued, what distinguished covert space from overt space. It was this aspect which defined the major contribution of the panel: spyscapes and intelligence networks force the historian to temper traditional readings of visible\/tangible space in which war\u2019s place within society, politics, and culture is virtually borderless.<\/p>\n The final panel explored the nexus between space and the memorial\/commemorative practices of war. Michael J. Nixon (Oxford University) plotted the \u2018emotional landscape\u2019 of South Wiltshire between 1916-2016, highlighting the use of the natural environment as a site for war\u2019s commemoration. Mark Connelly (University of Kent) looked at the Belgian city of Ypres<\/a>\u00a0 and its transformation into an extension of the British Empire (1919\u20131939), paying close attention to contemporary recognition of distinctions between British \u2018pilgrims\u2019 and \u2018tourists\u2019 and the simultaneous rebuilding (both physically and socially) of Ypres\u2019 landmarks and local communities. Finally, Kyra Schulman (Oxford University) argued for the utility of digital humanities by considering case studies of Holocaust memorialisation through mapping projects. Showcasing a range of digital maps, Schulman highlighted the significance of mapping Nazi occupied cities as a way of re-evaluating places of collaboration, resistance, and persecution. The final panel drew together many of the themes running through the conference as a whole\u2013\u2013noting how physical, imagined, and digital spaces provide important sites for exploring tensions between the personal and political impact of war and their commemoration.<\/p>\n The conference keynote, \u2018Spaces of War: Associative Meanings\u2019, was delivered by Corinna Peniston-Bird (Lancaster University). Spatial analysis of war, Bird argued, forces historians to consider materiality and location within the context of events (and their representation and memory). Yet the keynote crystallised a broader point running through the conference within the papers\u2013\u2013how can historians \u2018work\u2019 with space and place, and what methodological tools might they use in relation to the specific contexts of war? Themes and sub-disciplines stemming from the\u00a0 cultural \u2018turn(s)\u2019 such a \u2018gender\u2019, \u2018memory\u2019, and \u2018emotions\u2019 are equally as complex as \u2018space\u2019 but feature more developed working methodologies across various sites of war. What might this look like for \u2018space\u2019? The answers, it is hoped, will emerge with further cross-disciplinary work on the spatial treatments of war across time and culture.<\/p>\n Oliver Parken is a PhD candidate in the School of History at the University of Kent. <\/em>He is <\/em>currently finalising a thesis titled \u2018Belief and the People\u2019s War: Heterodoxy in Second World War Britain\u2019 which explores the social workings and cultural shaping of alternative beliefs as part of the wider dynamics of the \u2018people\u2019s war\u2019 at the home and fighting fronts.<\/em><\/p>\n Image Credit: Bletchley Park<\/a> by Mike McBey<\/a>\/Flickr, License: CC BY 2.0.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n