Santiago Gorostiza, who is a visiting researcher at the Division of Human Rights Studies this spring, will present the historiographical framing of his new FORMAS-funded project “From military to civil crime: an environmental history of ecocide”.

Abstract: War and Environment: Historiographical perspectives

In recent years, the environmental impact of warfare has made front-page news. Discussions about “ecocide” – a term first proposed in 1970 by Yale biologist Arthur Galston to describe the large-scale destruction of ecosystems during the Vietnam War – are back in the spotlight. Meanwhile, since the turn of the 21st century the study of war and the environment has become a burgeoning subfield of environmental history scholarship. Edmund Russell’s War and Nature (2001) inspired a stream of environmental history articles, monographs and edited collections exploring the direct and indirect impact of military operations in the environment, as well as its legacies for human and non-human life. In this seminar, I will examine the historiographical development of the environmental history of war field and its intersections with the history of science, technology and medicine. This research is part of the FORMAS-funded project “From military to civil crime: an environmental history of ecocide”, grant number 2024-00611”.

 

About Santiago Gorostiza 

Santiago Gorostiza is an environmental historian specializing in modern and early modern Spanish history. He was employed for three years at the Centre for History at Sciences Po (Paris), and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for the History of Science (Autonomous University of Barcelona). He has been awarded a FORMAS Early Career Grant and will be joining the Lund University Centre for Sustainability (LUCSUS) on April the 1^st.

Over the coming years, his research will focus on the environmental history of war in the 20^th century and the concept of ecocide. He is also eager to familiarize himself with Swedish historiography and to get to know the community of historians at Lund University and beyond. As a member of SWESP – The International Research Network of Historical connections between Spain and Sweden – he is particularly interested in developing research projects that integrate both countries. 

With this in mind, he looks forward to a short visiting stay at Lund University’s Department of History as a prelude to his new position in Sweden. 

You can learn more about Santiago's research through the links below:

ResearchGate Profile

UAB Research Portal