Notes on the contributors

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Sergeiy Sandler: Sergeiy is a conscientious objector to military service, a long-time activist in the Israeli feminist antimilitarist movement New Profile, and a member of the International Council of the War Resisters' International.

David Gee: David has written and co-written various research reports on ethical issues arising from military recruitment: ‘Informed Choice? Armed forces recruitment practice in the United Kingdom’ (2008), ‘Army recruiters visit London's poorest schools most often’ (2010), and ‘One Step Forward: The case for ending the recruitment of minors by the British armed forces’ (2013), and ‘Youngest recruits face greatest risks in Afghansitan’ (forthcoming). In 2010 he co-founded ForcesWatch. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference, he was one of those interviewed.

Rafael Uzcátegui: Rafael is part of an anarchist collective that since 1995 has produced the newspaper El Libertario (The Libertarian), which has a circulation of around 2000. Campaigning against militarism has always been a very important theme for the paper, but unfortunately this has been the only antimilitarist initiative in Venezuela in the past thirteen years. He is interested in the targetted militarisation of children and young people because he thinks that what they are exposed to in these formative years will determine their values and beliefs in their adult lives. His article in this book is based loosely on a piece he wrote for the WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference Reader. At the conference he gave a talk on the same topic, and he was also one of those interviewed.

Michael Schulze von Glaßer: Michael has been concerned with military advertising in the public sphere since 2008. He has published two books on the German Armed Forces' engagement with children. He is on the board of Informationsstelle Militarisierung (Information Centre on Militarisation), for whom he has done several studies on the portrayal of military operations in video games and on the connection between the games industry, arms industry and the military. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference he was on a panel exploring different perspectives on militarisation, approaching it from a public spaces and military culture angle, and led a workshop discussion on military video games. He also conducted all of the video interviews, extracts of the transcripts of which are included in this book. His article on public space was based on a piece he wrote for the conference Reader.

Ruti Kantor and Diana Dolev: Ruti has been a member of New Profile since 2000. She is a Visual Communication Designer and a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Her Design and political activist background have informed her interest in militaristic images in the every day life in Israel. Diana has been a member of New Profile for about thirteen years, which has been an ongoing learning process of the appearances and effects of militarism on civil society. As an architectural historian, she has a special interest in the design of urban spaces and its interelations with militaristic trends in urban environments. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference Ruti and Diana facilitated a workshop on military and public spaces, which inspired their article in this book.

Boro Kitanoski: Boro is a peace activist from the Republic of Macedonia. He was a conscientious objector to military service. He now focuses on 'Dealing with the past' work - collecting life stories, and engaging military veterans, victims, and other actors in peace processes - in Macedonia and former Yugoslavia. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference he gave a presentation on the militarisation of youth in former Yugoslavia.

Jorge Vélez: Jorge is a member of the Medellín Antimilitarist and Feminist Network, where he leads a training Anti-patriarchal Training course for young men and women. He is also part of the campaign against police brutality. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference he gave a presentation on the social and armed conflict in Colombia, outlining the armed groups involved, and their social, political and economic interests, as well as the continuation of forced recruitment and the targeting of poor neighbourhoods by military recruiters, and the status of conscientious objection. He was also interviewed there. His article is an an edited extract of his essay 'Militarización en Colombia: Rasgos históricos, efectos de la guerra y para-estado / Patriarcado, capitalismo y militarismo'.

Jonna Schürkes: Jonna works for Informationsstelle Militarisierung in Germany. Since 1996 they have critically approached the increasing militarisation in Germany and within the European Union. She regards herself as a mediator between the peace movement and critical research on peace and conflict. For a number of years she has been examining the relationship of cuts in social services and recruitment, advertising, and the deployment of youth officers in schools by the German Armed Forces. She has published numerous articles on these topics. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference she gave a talk on Informationsstelle Militarisierung and its work.

Serdar M. Değirmencioğlu: Serdar is a professor of psychology, a public scholar, and an outspoken advocate of children’s rights in Turkey. His work involves activism and focuses on neglected or untouchable issues, such as militarisation of young people. He regards militarism as a serious threat to children’s rights, social justice, and peace. The militarism in schools parts of his article are based on a piece he wrote for The Broken Rifle 88 (2011). He has edited a book examing martyrdom and militarism in Turkey, which is to be published in autumn 2013.

Dan Contreras: Dan is part of the Chilean antimilitarist group Ni Casco Ni Uniforme (Neither Helmet Nor Uniform). As an anarchist, researcher and history teacher, he is interested in the in-depth study of military practices in society, specifically in institutions that don’t appear to be sources of militarism, such as the education system. His research also encompasses militarism in Latin America and studying the construction of social concepts tied to military culture. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference he gave a talk which described and analysed some examples of military training in Chilean society and the influence of militarisation on young people today, taking into account its historical origins, its effects and potential responses. He was also one of those interviewed at the conference.

Emma Sangster: Emma is coordinator of ForcesWatch, which questions the ethics of UK military recruitment and the climate of uncritical national pride in the armed forces. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference, she sat on the panel exploring different perspectives on militarisation, where she talked about education and recruitment, and co-led a workshop with Ralf Willinger on the Military in Education, which explored how to counter the military’s engagement with schoolchildren. Her article in this book is based loosely on a piece she wrote for The Broken Rifle 92 (2012).

Andreas Speck: Andreas worked for WRI's Right to Refuse to Kill programme for more than eleven years. He initiated WRI’s Countering the Militarisation of Youth project. His article is based on a talk he gave at WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference, where he also provided a queer/gender perspective on a panel discussing how to analyse militarisation, and facilitated a workshop with a similar focus. An article he wrote for The Broken Rifle 85 (2010) was included in the conference Reader.

Sahar Vardi: Sahar Vardi is an Israeli anti-militarism activist, currently working for the American Friends Service Committee coordinating their Israel programme. At eighteen, she refused her mandatory military service. Since then she has been working with movements such as New Profile and the Shministim, to support other young people who resist conscription. She co-wrote a piece for the WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference Reader. At the conference she gave a presentation on the use of women to promote conscription in Israel, upon which her article is based. She was also one of those interviewed there.

Kai-Uwe Dosch, Sarah Roßa and Lena Sachs: Kai-Uwe has been working both as a volunteer in the peace movement and as a professional in educational settings for a long time. His stated aim and hope is to counter the intensified militarisation of schools. This has become his 'natural' focus in his present job for the Federation for Social Defense. Sarah became involved in the working group for a Zivilklausel at the University of Frankfurt in 2011. A Zivilklausel is the self-imposed obligation of the university not to cooperate in any way with the armed forces or enterprises producing weapons. In January 2013 the Zivilklausel was undertaken fully by the university. Lena has a BA in Education and an MA in Education and Social Work. She is author of 'Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Bundeswehr und Schulen - eine kritische Analyse' ('Collaboration between the German Armed Forces and schools - a critical analysis', published in 2012), and coordinates the Baden-Württemberg campaign 'Armed Forces-free Schools'. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference, Kai-Uwe, Sarah, and Lena co-facilitated a workshop on resistance to militarisation in educational institutions, the discussions and conclusions of which their article in this book is based upon.

Kelly Dougherty: Kelly served in the U.S. military for eight years. She joined the Colorado Army National Guard as a medic in 1996, age 17. She later received training as a Military Police person and was deployed in this role on a peacekeeping mission in Hungary and Croatia from 1999-2000. In 2003 she was deployed with the Military Police to Kuwait and Iraq for year. After returning from Iraq in 2004, she met several other Iraq veterans who were opposed to the U.S. occupation there at a Veterans For Peace convention. She co-founded Iraq Veterans Against the War with them later that year. IVAW currently has about 1,200 members and is actively working on the Operation Recovery and Right to Heal campaigns. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference Kelly ran a workshop on the role veterans can play in challenging the militarisation of youth. She was also one of those interviewed there.

Ralf Willinger: Ralf has had a long career working for human rights, peace, refugee advocacy and child welfare in many parts of the world, including Southern Africa and countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America. In addition to his full-time job as Child Rights Officer at Terre des Hommes, Germany, he is the coordinator of the German Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference he co-led a workshop with Emma Sangster on the Military in Education, which explored how to counter the military’s engagement with schoolchildren. He also co-led a workshop with Helen Kearney on Child Rights.

Cecil Arndt: Cecil is an activist living in Germany, engaged in various antimilitarist groups and networks. He works with dfg-vk (the German section of WRI), and with the European Antimilitarist Network, which currently includes different groups and organisations from six European countries working together in different kinds of campaigns and direct action, and inviting other groups to join them. At WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference, he ran a workshop on direct action as resistance to the militarisation of youth, the discussions of which helped inform his article in this book.

Cattis Laska and Hanns Molander: Cattis is a social worker - working mainly with young people - and an activist involved in antimilitarist, asylum rights/No Borders, feminist, queer and prison struggles. Hanns is a disability worker, and is involved in anarchist activism and in the People's Kitchen movement. Both are active in the Swedish antimilitarist network Ofog, which has mainly worked with nonviolent direct actions against the military-industrial complex (arms factories, military exercises, NATO), but since the end of compulsory military service in Sweden in 2010 and the Armed Forces' shift to aggressive recruitment has identified counter recruitment as a very important area of antimilitarist work. Their article in this book is based on a piece they wrote for The Broken Rifle 92 (2012), and on the presentation and workshop they gave at WRI's Countering the Militarisation of Youth Conference. Cattis was also one of those interviewed at the conference.