About

War & geos brings together experts from different disciplinary backgrounds to examine relations between war and the earth. We interrogate the temporal and spatial bounds of war, building perspectives from the earth and those who live in war-affected landscapes.

Our research activities explore a doubly destructive relationship between war and geos in which the materials deposited into the land during war (e.g., the heavy metals of munitions) are first extracted from the earth at distant mining sites (e.g., in the DRC). For tin, tantalum, tungsten, and so forth to be harmful to targeted populations in, for example, Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan, they are first pulled from the earth’s crust at great cost to mining communities and environments.

The environmental legacies of this cycle of extraction, production, and deployment are currently undisclosed and vast in scale; entire regions and populations live with the threat of gradual and deferred harm from the materiality of war.

We are currently investigating weapons supply chains, seeking to trace the refashioning of raw materials into weapons that are then re-introduced into the earth during bombardment. If you have information to share or would like to collaborate, please contact the project’s Principal Investigator, Mark Griffiths.

The project is based at Newcastle University with partners PENGON (Palestinian Environmental NGOs Networks) and Purdue University and was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2022. It is now funded through UKRI Horizon Europe and will run 2023-2028.