Processing violence: the continuum between fear, doubt, and joy among German soldiers in Afghanistan

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Violence in war and the emotions and meanings connected to it can only be understood through a broad social science research approach to tackle the complexity of human reactions to extraordinary experiences in theatres of war. This article looks at the significance of the continuum of emotions from fear, to doubt, to joy for German military personnel in Afghanistan when processing experiences of war-related violence. For a long time, this question of the significance of emotions connected to war and violence was of little interest to military research. The emotional dimension of the human element of war thus remained understudied. Acts of violence, both suffered and committed, however, can be processed socially and culturally in very different ways. They can trigger a plurality of emotions along the continuum between fear, doubt, and joy and between acts of desperation and acts of enjoyment and fun. I want to contribute to a new and more nuanced understanding of the multidimensionality of war and soldiering through a study of the role and implications of violent experiences for soldiers. To gain a more nuanced understanding of these experiences of violence, this article discusses various and shifting emotions among German soldiers who have been deployed to Afghanistan, ranging from fear and joy to relief, doubt, and moral conflict.