CHIBOW coordinator, Sabine Lee, named proxime accessit for a book prize

In her book Children Born of War in the Twentieth Century published in 2017, Sabine Lee, CHIBOW's network coordinator, explores the life courses of children born of war in in different twentieth-century conflicts, including the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide and the LRA conflict. The book is not only based on extensive archival research but also on oral history and participatory research methods, enabling her to integrate the voices of children born of war throughout the historical analysis.

During the 2019 Social History Society conference held at the University of Lincoln on the 10-12 June, Sabine has been named proxime accessit for

the Social History Society's 2019 Book Prize for her book.

The prize committee commented on her work as follows:

'The book tackles a topic that has received very little attention from historians: ‘children born of war’ – the term referring to children fathered by foreign soldiers and born to local mothers during and after armed conflicts. It spans a number of twentieth century conflicts and draws on an impressive range of archival and library materials in three languages from the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the US and Canada. Dealing with the law, psychology, international relations and much else, the book surveys what can be discovered about activities and experiences widely hidden from public discussion, emphasising the complexities and difficulties of analysing or generalizing about them. It also engages with cognate disciplines, particularly human rights and socio-legal history.

The committee judged this as a highly original study of sex, forced and consensual, in a variety of war situations, and its impacts on the women involved and children born in such circumstances. It described the book as well constructed and accessibly written, as well as impressive, treating its subject with both care and distance.'