Prof. dr. Ismee Tames
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Biography
As a senior researcher at NIOD and professor of War Cultures at Utrecht University, Tames studies the ways in which people and societies deal with war and mass violence. War Cultures are the sum of behaviors, ideas, and practices that enable societies to commit and endure large-scale violence. To gain more insight into these processes, she uses transnational, global history and micro-historical approaches, which she combines with methods from the social sciences and the digital humanities.
Currently, Tames studies the experience of statelessness in the era of the First and Second World War. In doing so, she address topics such as inclusion and exclusion, communities of care, enemies within, violence, persecution, displacement, silences, and complex historical sources.
Human beings are ‘meaning makers’: when they feel that the world around them does not make sense, they create meaning. In our time of widespread violence and polarization, this causes many of us to think that the world is full of enemies we must eliminate or whom we must run away from. These processes of mobilization – the discursive construction of an enemy and the legitimation of violence – take place at all levels, from interpersonal relationships to global interactions. In this way, our process of meaning-making can sustain fear and violence.
For over 25 years, Tames has been researching the ways in which people give meaning to their world when they experience extreme events, such as wars, persecution, and forced migration. With my writing and teaching she helps to open up to the experiences of others so that we can break down barriers and re-build our world from an understanding of shared humanity.