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Citizenship and Humanisation of the Public Sector

Back with a mission: reconsidering return trips from a relational perspective

  • Start: september 2022
  • Status: lopend

‘Back with a mission. Reconsidering return trips from a relational perspective’ is an interdisciplinary research project that studies if and how return trips to mission areas help war veterans, their partners, and Bosnian citizens to assign meaning to their wartime experiences. 

Description

Early 2021, the Dutch ministry of Defense announced that they would organize return trips to Srebrenica for Dutchbat III veterans (stationed in Srebrenica during the genocide of July 1995), as a gesture of recognition and care. This project empirically analyses the encounters taking place between Bosnian genocide-survivors and the veterans. It critically reflects on the possibilities and limitations of these encounters as a means for a repair of the relations between these different groups. Moreover, a comparison will be made with return trips to other areas of former UN missions, such as Lebanon. 


The project builds on insights obtained in an earlier pilot study (2019-2021) on veteran return trips (which resulted in a report and recommendations for the script of the trips). Back with a Mission is associated to the Dialogics of Justice research project of the University of Humanistic Studies and is a cooperation with Leiden University Medical Centre.

Researchers

  • Eric Vermetten (LUMC University of Leiden)
  • Nicole Immler (Universiteit voor Humanistiek)
  • Siri Driessen (Universiteit voor Humanistiek)
  • Jeannette van Brenk (Humanistic Chaplaincy)

Partners

(Co-)financing

Publications

  • Driessen, S.R., Brenk, J. van, Immler, N.L. 2024. Rethinking veteran return trips from a relational perspective: partner's roles in challenging military discourses. Critical Military Studies (online first).
  • Immler, N.L., Driessen, S.R., Brenk, J. van. 2022. Bosnië is veranderd, terwijl ik zelf stil ben blijven staan [Bosnia has changed, while I stood still]. Militaire Spectator 191 (6), 373-379.
  • Immler, N.L. & Driessen, S.R. 2021. Geef erkenning aan Dutchbat én hun omgeving. Op-ed: Trouw. March 8th, 2021.
  • Driessen, S.R. 2021. Making sense of war memories. An analysis of Dutch veteran return trips to former Yugoslavia. Ethos 49 (2), 152-170.

Contact

Nicole Immler (n.immler@uvh.nl)

Interdisciplinary research project that studies if and how return trips to mission areas help war veterans, their partners, and citizens to assign meaning to their wartime experiences.