This was a very interesting panel that I quite enjoyed. Thank you all greatly for your thoughts and your work. To reuse a question I asked an earlier panel, I'm interested to hear how an emotion like hope effects, or is effected by the events in this panel. These voices face incredible violence, or fear, and many other emotions. But do you see glimmers of hope shining through effecting things?

Thank you so much for a fascinating panel! I have a question that I think all of the panelists will have an angle to, but was inspired mostly by an aside from /u/irishpatobie that I was hoping he might be able to expand on. Dr. O'Brien's focus was on white society, but noted how there was also a population of black refugees who would have experienced their exile quite differently. It was something that I was hoping he might be able to expand on, but I also expect that the racial/ethnic identification shaped the ways that all of these situations that you are talking about would be experienced. I had the pleasure of chatting briefly with /u/NogaiPolitics during one of the networking sessions and this was partly what reminded me of the question, as the political, religious, and ethnic diversity of Lebanon came up and it was fascinating just how unexpected some of the associations were, so I was hoping you might also be able to expand on that and get a bit more detailed on how those identities could cause divergences in experiences.

A question mainly aimed at /u/irishpatobie and /u/Hdyozkn: you both use methodologies (history of emotions/literary analysis) that are not exactly traditional in terms of approaches to conflict. Have you had much pushback from more traditionally-minded historians in this field? What sort of different perspectives/changed narratives do you think new methods can offer?

What was it like for you, the authors, researching such intense and emotional subjects? I can imagine it must have been pretty depressing at times, but it also seems like there were some uplifiting moments when people came together.

Good afternoon and welcome to the “In Whose Trenches?: Violence, Voice, and the Experience of War from Below” conference panel Q&A! This panel examines the experiences of the everyday people who have been figuratively or literally caught up on warfare.

Moderated by Caitlin Smith (/u/mydearestangelica), this panel draws from the experiences of civilians from the American Revolution to the Lebanese Civil War.

It features:

Dr. Patrick O’Brien (/u/irishpatobie), presenting his paper, “‘Gilded Misery’: Reconsidering Emotions and Community during the American Revolution”.

​Reading the private correspondence and personal journals of loyal British subjects during the American Revolution reveals unmistakable grief and hardship. Between 1775 and 1784, between 60,000 and 100,000 British colonists fled the rebellious colonies for protection elsewhere in the Empire leaving behind homes and families. More than 30,000 of these loyalists landed in Nova Scotia, quickly overwhelming the colonial government’s ability to feed, clothe, and shelter them. Poverty and disease plagued refugee settlements. Historians have used the humanitarian disaster in Nova Scotia to explain why the northern colonies never fulfilled the founders’ dreams of becoming “the envy of the American states.”

This research pushes back against the idea that this suffering was completely isolating. To the contrary, it suggests that in loyalist Nova Scotia, shared suffering—or what one refugee called “gilded misery”—served as the glue that united a diverse group of refugees. Collective hardship became the backbone of a new community. More broadly, it examines the loyalist revolutionary experience to suggest that in the midst of upheaval and change, marginalized people stand at a unique position to use shared emotions—even sadness, grief, and suffering—to affect important societal changes.

Dr. Hediye Özkan (/u/Hdyozkn), presenting her paper, “The Rupture Between the South and North: The Diary of Nancy Emerson and War Discourse”.​

As a middle-class woman living in Augusta County, Virginia, fifty-six-year-old Nancy Emerson began writing a journal in May 1862 and continued until November 1864 to record the war from a Southern woman’s perspective. Participating in the debate and contributing to the perception of war in her journal allowed Nancy Emerson to problematize the boundaries between the South/North, freedom/enslavement, public/private, subject/object, and feminine/masculine. Emerson conveys a dramatic socio-political rupture in American history by resisting rhetorically, physically, and politically the freedom of enslaved African Americans and endeavors of Northern abolitionists who, according to her, go against God’s will.

This paper argues that Emerson’s personal narrative problematizes the voice and place of women along with the institution of slavery within war discourse. On one hand, Emerson demolishes and crosses the borders set against women, yet on the other, she supports the idea of preserving racial boundaries reinforced through slavery. Analyzing her journal entries, each of which constitutes a unique text and historical document, this paper examines how Emerson justifies the preservation of slavery drawing a parallel between religion and propriety of slavery, yet she challenges traditional gender norms of nineteenth-century society through the act of writing.

Edwin Tran (/u/NogaiPolitics), presenting his paper, “Crossing Sect and Race: Civilian Ingenuity during the Lebanese Civil War”.​

When the Lebanese Civil War erupted on April 13, 1975, government structures and formal institutions broke down. As militias drew battle lines and brought destruction to the country, millions were caught in the crossfires. Hundreds of thousands were displaced, many became refugees, and stories of tragedy and hardship became commonplace. From the Shia-dominated Bekaa Valley to the Druze homeland of the Chouf Mountains, it became clear that the civilian experience during the civil war crossed ethnic and religious lines. As such, many narratives imply that the civilian experience was one of hopelessness. This perspective negates the ingenuity and autonomy of the many individuals that stepped into the void as government institutions collapsed. This paper highlights the many ways civilians created their own institutions and social services in order to bring some semblance of stability in this period of turmoil and bloodshed. Even in areas held by warlords and rogue militias, informal civil society groups emerged to aid the wider community. By illustrating specific experiences from different parts of Lebanon, this paper hopes to combat pre-existing narratives and to highlight what individuals can do in even the bleakest of times.

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