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Maastricht University

This web site and blog is intended to act as a hub for the global community of scholars working on military occupation as a form of alien rule and as a dynamic power relationship between occupiers and occupied.

Military Occupations have been a persistent feature of international politics for at least the past two hundred years since the French Revolution. Many territories are still subject to various forms of military occupation and rule today. Yet although specific cases have been studied in great detail, this research is highly fragmented. Scholars from different disciplines, studying different territories or time periods, rarely talk to each other. The Occupation Studies Research Network promotes the exchange of ideas, the sharing of information, and aims to encourage a more systematic, comprehensive and interdisciplinary conceptual understanding of the phenomenon of military occupation.

 

Recent articles

Colonized Occupiers and Occupied Colonies

Colonized Occupiers and Occupied Colonies

Rebekah Hodge, University College London, Laure Humbert,University of Manchester, Élise Mazurié, University of Freiburg, Sneha Reddy Tumu, Bangassou, Central African Republic and Sara-Jane Vigneault, University of Cambridge

This panel focuses on the period of the two world wars and their aftermaths,drawing attention to the links between imperial and occupation policies and practices within and across empires.

Comparing and contrasting total war-era occupations in Europe (1914-1948)

Comparing and contrasting total war-era occupations in Europe (1914-1948)

Samuël Kruizinga, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

The panel presented here focuses on comparisons and entanglements between different types of occupation in the age of total warfare, with a view to cutting across some of the typological distinctions that hide elements of continuity or convergence among various occupation policies and experiences.

Life Writing and the Lived Experience of Occupation, 1914-2022

Life Writing and the Lived Experience of Occupation, 1914-2022

Sophie De Schaepdrijver, Pennsylvania State University and Tammy M. Proctor, Utah State University, USA

Our panel provides examples of how life writing might help scholars explore occupied civilians’ relationships and intimate encounters with each other and their occupiers. Diaries, letters, logbooks, poetry, photographs, and ephemera express patterns that document the impact of occupation. We conclude with an invitation to Network members to contribute to a new project.

Architecture as an Instrument of Social and Cultural Change in Occupied Germany after 1945

Architecture as an Instrument of Social and Cultural Change in Occupied Germany after 1945

Johanna Blokker and Antoine Beaudoin, Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, Germany

The vast majority of Allied interventions in Germany’s built environment – comprising hundreds of buildings for purposes ranging from education to housing to healthcare – continue to be overlooked. The panel aims to call attention to these forgotten or neglected but still extant artefacts as an untapped resource of insights into the Occupation.

Entangled Experiences: Power, Colonialism and Gender in Occupied Germany and Japan

Entangled Experiences: Power, Colonialism and Gender in Occupied Germany and Japan

Christine de Matos, The University of Notre Dame Australia and The National Coalition of Independent Scholars

The panel on Entangled Experiences in Occupied Germany and Japan compares and interrogates interactions in the occupier home and supporting communities. It aims to give voice to underrepresented actors in each of the two cases of occupation discussed in this panel: that of women and children and the non-white occupier.

Prestige, Authority, and Insecurity in the Occupied Rhinelands, 1918-1923 and 1945-55

Prestige, Authority, and Insecurity in the Occupied Rhinelands, 1918-1923 and 1945-55

Félix Streicher, Maastricht University, Netherlands and Drew Flanagan, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, USA

This panel brings together three papers that consider the challenges that different small, vulnerable, or weakened Allied occupying powers faced in establishing authority and projecting prestige in the occupied Rhineland during Europe’s two post-war periods.

What is an Occupation? On the Boundaries of a Disputed Subject

What is an Occupation? On the Boundaries of a Disputed Subject

Camilo Erlichman, Maastricht University, Netherlands and Christopher Knowles, King’s College London, UK

In this extended article, the Network convenors discuss three different but inter-related conceptual understandings of occupation – for international lawyers, political scientists and historians – as an introduction to the Occupation Studies conference in July and to help answer the question ‘What is an occupation?’

Rethinking the Dynamics of Occupation: Time and Space in Diaries from the Occupied Netherlands, Ukraine and France (1940-1945)

Rethinking the Dynamics of Occupation: Time and Space in Diaries from the Occupied Netherlands, Ukraine and France (1940-1945)

Laura Eckl (Bergische University of Wuppertal) and Gaëlle Fisher (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe), Germany

In the fifth article in the series, by examining concepts of time, temporality and space through the lens of the history of everyday life, we aim to shed light on similarities and differences of experiences in various occupied societies throughout Europe.

Film Industry, Moviegoing, and Nonfiction Cinema in Occupied Italy (1943-1945)

Film Industry, Moviegoing, and Nonfiction Cinema in Occupied Italy (1943-1945)

Paolo Villa, University of Parma, Italy

The fourth article in the series discusses cinema as a complex and multi-layered social institution that both reflects a historical moment and actively acts in and influences it. This panel examines cinema and films as historic objects within the broader context of the occupation, and as privileged historical sources for investigating the occupation at large.

Occupation and Annexation during the Second World War. The Case of Luxembourg

Occupation and Annexation during the Second World War. The Case of Luxembourg

Joé Voncken, University of Luxembourg

The third article in the series situates Luxembourg’s occupation during the Second World War within a broader comparative framework and understanding of occupation, exploring the institutional and societal impact of occupation and integration policies in a small, de facto annexed state.

Connecting Aid Operations and Occupation

Connecting Aid Operations and Occupation

Brian Drohan, U.S. Military Academy, West Point and Margot Tudor, City University of London

The second article in the series introduces the panel on Military Humanitarianism, which challenges the idea of occupation as a wartime or immediately post-war activity, revealing the slipperiness between wartime/peacetime boundaries.

Under American Occupation

Under American Occupation

Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Louisiana State University, USA

The first of a series introducing some of the panels at the Network conference in July 2025 offers a long view of American occupation practices from the late C18 to the Civil War and late C19 formal imperialism. By comparing and contrasting Native American, white and Black American, Puerto Rican, and Filipino reactions, we can see patterns of both resistance and engagement with occupying forces.

The Emergence of the Concept of “Illegal Occupation” in International Law

The Emergence of the Concept of “Illegal Occupation” in International Law

Yaël Ronen, Academic Centre for Science and Law and Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel

The purpose of this article is to delineate the emergence of occupation as a normative concept in international discourse, namely as a phenomenon that can be labeled as legal or illegal.

Ukraine – two years on

Ukraine – two years on

Ferenc Laczó, Maastricht University, Netherlands and Tarik Cyril Amar, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Following the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, two scholars who contributed to the previous article on this blog on Ukraine- one year on, provide an update on what, in their view, has changed over the past year, and what has stayed the same?

The Codification of the Law of Occupation

The Codification of the Law of Occupation

Jonathan Gumz, University of Birmingham, UK.

In the sixth and final article in this series, Jonathan Gumz discusses how codification of the law of occupation was intended to contain conflict, but left open potential paths to the very type of uncontained conflict that it sought to avoid.

The First Allied Occupation – France 1815-18

The First Allied Occupation – France 1815-18

Beatrice de Graaf, Utrecht University, NL.

This second article on the remarkably successful Allied occupation of France, 1815-18, discusses what made it new and innovative, and why it was subsequently forgotten.

The Dutch réunion with the Napoleonic Empire

The Dutch réunion with the Napoleonic Empire

Martijn van der Burg, Open University of the Netherlands

The third article in the series explores historiographical and other reasons to be cautious in describing the Napoleonic period in the Netherlands, from 1810-1813, as a time of occupation.

The Origins of the Idea of Military Occupation

The Origins of the Idea of Military Occupation

Peter Stirk

In the second article in the series, Peter Stirk argues that the tumultuous events of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars put the idea and practice of occupation, as distinct from conquest, on the international agenda.

Enforced Progress: Napoleon’s Occupation of Europe

Enforced Progress: Napoleon’s Occupation of Europe

Michael Rowe, King’s College London, UK

This first article in a series on the origins of the concept of occupation discusses how the nature and practice of occupation changed and evolved during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, 1789 to 1815.

Collaboration in Japanese-occupied China (1937-1945): Old and New Questions

Collaboration in Japanese-occupied China (1937-1945): Old and New Questions

David Serfass (Inalco-IFRAE), Paris, France

Six years after the invasion of Manchuria at the end of 1931, the Japanese army took over the most developed Chinese provinces. The eight years of the ‘War of Resistance against Japan’ (kangri zhanzheng), between 1937 and 1945, were marked by a phenomenon common to all situations of occupation: ‘collaboration’.

Re-educational Strategies beyond the Postwar Moment

Re-educational Strategies beyond the Postwar Moment

Jana Aresin and Katharina Gerund, Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany

The term ‘re-education’ is most readily associated with the immediate postwar era and the Allied occupation of Germany after the Second World War. The historical genealogy of the notion of ‘re-education’ was, however, far more complex than this simplistic understanding would suggest.

Ukraine – one year on: Reflections on the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine

Ukraine – one year on: Reflections on the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine

David Edelstein (Georgetown University, USA), Sophie De Schaepdrijver (Penn State University, USA), Ferenc Laczó (Maastricht University, Netherlands), Tarik Cyril Amar (Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey)

Four experts provide a brief update with their reflections on what has changed, and what has stayed the same, one year on. Can our knowledge of previous cases of occupation help us understand better what is happening now, and possible future outcomes?

Interested in joining?

The Occupation Studies Research Network is intended to support scholars in any discipline, who are actively researching or who have recently completed work on some aspect of the subject of Military Occupation. Membership is free, and the network is not limited to any particular time period or national cases of occupation. Find out about how to apply for membership by clicking on the button below.