Resisting War (The Politics of Conscientious Objection)

Political theorists conventionally frame conscientious objection as a private and apolitical corollary of civil disobedience. In Resisting War, Pınar Kemerli challenges this depoliticized interpretation and argues that conscientious objection can be a radically political practice that calls into question the state’s right to coerce individuals to partake in wars deemed oppressive and unjust. Interweaving a study of the evolution of conscientious objection theory and practice from the First World War onward with extensive fieldwork examining the Turkish antiwar movement, Kemerli tracks the many ways this resistance practice taps into the diverse histories and paradigms of anticolonialism and anti-imperialism. Connecting the stories of African American Muslims to Vietnam and then to Turks and Kurds in the Middle East, Kemerli shows how the refusal to participate in war ultimately raises its own distinct contestation of state sovereignty, nationalist allegiance, and the normative religiosities that claim people in the service of militarized nationalism.