The Centre for Research on the Experience of War (CREG) approaches war-related phenomena through the question of experience.

The Centre studies the experience of war, the construction of its narratives, its political and social uses, as well as the responses it generates. It is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together historians, philosophers, political scientists, psychologists, legal scholars, economists, media specialists, and researchers in literature and the arts, among others.

Starting from the experience of war makes it possible to take into account and connect several dimensions inherent to warfare. The experience of war relates not only to the event of war itself, but also to the lives—both public and hidden—lived in its aftermath. These multiple temporalities unfold in the psychological effects of war, its place in intimate life and collective memory, and the role assigned to it in political or memorial discourses.

Moreover, the way in which the experience of war is narrated plays an active role in the conduct of war itself: such experiences tend to be actively mobilized as stakes of war, whether to legitimize or criticize it, to discredit the adversary or, on the contrary, to call for overcoming hostility, or to appeal to international solidarity. Finally, ways of experiencing war always bear the mark of the specific nature of each conflict, raising the question of how contemporary transformations of warfare reshape these experiences. Through these different dimensions, CREG seeks to understand, through the lens of experience, the multiple ways in which war affects societies.

CREG’s work is organized around three main axes. The first focuses on the construction of representations of war and the experience of war. The second examines the transmission and reappropriation of these narratives by various actors. The third addresses the legal, political, and social effects and uses of the experience of war, with particular attention to processes of legitimation and critique.