Project Description

The last few years have seen a significant renewal of anti-militarist activism on university campuses globally. Universities in the UK have especially become focal points of protest. Across the UK, university students and staff have established encampments, urging their institutions to reconsider partnerships with military institutions. These acts of resistance against militarisation have criticised military development in the UK and institutional ties to international conflicts.

In this project I seek to offer a critical account of the politics of anti-militarist campus movements in the UK universities. By examining acts of resistance such as public demonstrations, teach-outs, occupations, workshops, and poster making sessions, I will provide an in-depth account of the tactics, strategies and philosophies at the heart of recent anti-militarist movements in the UK universities. Key questions I will seek to address are: How do anti-militarist campus movements engage with the concept of peace? In these movements, does anti-militarism inherently entail nonviolence? What alternatives to militarism do the activists envision? How do the anti-militarist discourses address militarism’s connections to gendered, racial, nationalist, colonialist and capitalist power structures? Is there a risk that these movements end up mirroring the very systems they aim to dismantle?

Bio

Baris Celik has obtained his PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent, UK. He currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the politics of the European Union and Middle East politics at the University of Sheffield, UK. His research interests are pacifist and non-violent perspectives in international relations, as well as the politics of the European Union with a focus on security and defence policies.

Baris Celik's University of Sheffield Profile