Feeling the mission: affective atmospheres and the interpretation of peacekeeping

We are very pleased to welcome Maximilian Stoller (Conflict Management and International Relations, ETH Zurich) for a discussion of his forthcoming chapter, co-authored with Allard Duursma, Feeling the Mission: Affective Atmospheres and the Interpretation of Peacekeeping. Drawing on his empirical work with peacekeepers, Maximilian will elaborate the concept of affective atmosphere and what it can tell us about how those working in peace operations make sense of the environments they find themselves in. 

In Feeling the Mission, Stoller and Duursma start from the observation that peacekeepers are continually interpreting complex operational environments under conditions of uncertainty. Existing research has shown how these interpretations are shaped by military cultures, organisational routines, local knowledge, credibility, and everyday relationships. The chapter proposes affective atmosphere as an integrative lens for bringing these dimensions together. Social relations, material surroundings, spatial arrangements, memories, and expectations are usually treated separately in research, but they are experienced together as a situation with an immediately felt quality. Atmosphere, they argue, is neither an objective property of a place nor the sum of individual emotions. It emerges relationally and may be felt quite differently by actors inhabiting the same environment. 

Drawing on peacekeeping scholarship, mission documents, and interviews conducted in operations and peacekeeping training institutions, the chapter traces how peacekeepers sense atmospheres. It shows how familiarity and local mediation shape their interpretations, how peacekeepers themselves take part in producing atmospheres through posture and conduct, and how earlier encounters leave traces in later situations. Stoller and Duursma show that atmospheric judgement can complement other forms of situational awareness, while remaining partial and fallible. The chapter closes by setting out a research agenda on atmospheric plurality, attunement, organisational translation, materiality and change over time. 

This is sure to be a thought-provoking discussion, and we very much hope you will join us. 

Registration will close two hours before the event begins.