War, ontology and bodies: Beyond human-centred approaches

An important corporeal turn within war studies ontologises war as an embodied experience. The focus, however, is overwhelmingly on human bodies. This interdisciplinary article addresses this gap and, in so doing, contributes to a growing corpus of scholarship that challenges anthropocentric ways of thinking about war. First, it utilises Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeality to emphasise that war affects interconnected bodies across human and more-than-human worlds. Second, it reflects on some of the ways that war can relieve and reduce anthropogenic pressures on other-than-human bodies. It draws on some original empirical data from an ongoing research project on the Russia-Ukraine war.