One of the (un)intended consequences of armed conflicts are children born to local mothers and fathered by enemy soldiers or peacekeeping forces. In research these children are referred to as “children born of war” (CBOW). Their common features are their perceived association with the enemy and resulting exposure to risk in various spheres of their lives as well as violation of their rights in post-conflict societies. Even though these children were born throughout history and continue to be born from current conflicts around the globe, this topic is in many countries still taboo.[1] The Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Innovative Training Network “Children Born of War: Past, Present and Future” (CH
EU’s Marie Curie Innovative Training Network’s Early Stage Researcher, Oskars Gruziņš, discovers one
It all started in the archives of the Latvian War Museum, where Oskars Gruziņš, member of the Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Innovative Training Network project “Children Born of War: Past, Present and Future,” was studying the personal letters of Latvian soldiers forced to fight on the side of the Waffen-SS in World War Two. Later, archivists at the War Museum, having been acquainted with the subject of Gruziņš’s PhD dissertation, on children born to local mothers and fathered by Soviet or Third Reich soldiers in Latvia, forwarded an email to Oskars from a Gunter Stribning in Germany. Gunter, a German national born in 1942, was looking for assistance in his work to unravel a family mystery. Somet
On 17-18th January, children born of war, artists and academics met at the University of Birmingham to explore the borderlands between performance arts, political theatre and academic research. The participants explored the link between research insights and the genesis of performance art, and the nature of collaborations between academic researchers and performance artists. How do we facilitate those collaborations? What happens when the world of performances and the world of academia intersect? While the panels discussions and the keynote presentations invited the participants to share their experience of working in these borderlands, the interventions and infotainment sessions forced them
