The study of violence, whether conceptually or empirically, has grown markedly in the twenty-first century. From the proliferation of new forms of conflict within and between societies to growing awareness of the diversity of ‘everyday violence’, scholars are exploring fundamental questions about what constitutes violence, how it is organised, and how it reverberates through communities and lives.

The Centre for Histories of Violence and Conflict (CHVC) brings together researchers across disciplines with interests in historical approaches to studying collective violence, its meanings and impacts, its limits and abuses, and the strategies and abuses of violence workers, from security forces to terror groups. Analysing past histories of violence, many with continuing legacies in our contemporary world, offers distinct insights into these questions – and is at the heart of our work.

Staff members pursue various methods to explore the evidential traces of violence in historical and cultural spaces. Some have particular interests in histories of violence, displacement, and environmental spoliation. Others examine the connections between differing forms of mass violence, the conceptualisation of human rights, and their legal histories. Still others look for evidential traces of violence on societies, communities and bodies. Some work through archaeological records, others through historical documentation and quantitative data.