Thursday 5th – Friday 6th February 2026
Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek, Huddinge, Sweden
With financial support of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
The late 1970s marked a shift in global politics. The disintegration of the détente era ignited a so-called ‘New Cold War’ or ‘Second Cold War” (see e.g. Painter 1999; Wettig 2009). This was marked by the breakdown of the Helsinki Accords, Soviet interference in Afghanistan, and the imminent election of Ronald Reagan as the president of the United States. Europe, including the Nordic countries, subsequently witnessed what became known as the Euromissile Crisis, which elicited transnationally reverberant responses across the continent. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding anti-nuclear disarmament. …
Thursday 5th – Friday 6th February 2026
Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek, Huddinge, Sweden
With financial support of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
The late 1970s marked a shift in global politics. The disintegration of the détente era ignited a so-called ‘New Cold War’ or ‘Second Cold War” (see e.g. Painter 1999; Wettig 2009). This was marked by the breakdown of the Helsinki Accords, Soviet interference in Afghanistan, and the imminent election of Ronald Reagan as the president of the United States. Europe, including the Nordic countries, subsequently witnessed what became known as the Euromissile Crisis, which elicited transnationally reverberant responses across the continent. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding anti-nuclear disarmament. Nordic women mobilised to form the transnational network, Women for Peace, which between 1981–1983 garnered much attention by organising marches in Western Europe, into the Soviet Union and across North America while maintaining cooperation with women’s movements in other countries, such as the peace camps at Greenham Common in England and Comiso in Italy. The workshop’s focus is on events, actors and themes prevalent in the 1980s, a pivotal decade for initiatives focused on peace in the Nordic countries and beyond.
When researching peace movement against the backdrop of the Cold War, it is important to pay attention to the significant differences within and between the Nordic countries. On one hand, Finnish conceptions of peace were influenced by a complicated geopolitical positioning next to the Soviet Union. The Finnish Women for Peace, a grassroots organization established in the late 1970s, nevertheless demanded bilateral nuclear disarmament (Yoken 2025). On the other hand, Iceland was a founding member of NATO, yet its membership in the Western defense and military alliance was the object of harsh local conflicts during the second half of the 20th century (Bjorgulfsdottir 1989; Ingimundarson 2001). Women were strongly represented in Icelandic peace movements of the 1980s, with connections to the feminist movement being equally robust.
Women’s peace activism during the Cold War has been studied mainly in Anglo-American contexts (e.g. Roseneil 1997; 2000; Murray 2006; McCarthy et al 2015; Fazzi 2016) and Nordic women’s peace activism has been far less explored (for exceptions see Petersson 1992; Rosengren 2020; Yoken 2025). Furthermore, the Nordic countries have traditionally portrayed themselves as firmly supporting peace and conflict resolution efforts. They have even declared a special “Nordic peace brand”, featuring inclusive welfare societies, gender equality, and avoiding the deployment of troops and arms during the Cold War (Hagemann & Bramsen 2019). However, gendered understandings of international security, work for peace, and women’s rights within peace frameworks in the region are yet to be explored.
This workshop welcomes intersectional research focused on peace movements, gender and class in historical contexts. The workshopaims to produce nuanced analyses of gender in relation to peace, highlighting a plurality of perspectives and avoiding oversimplified narratives. We welcome abstracts from historians as well as researchers from other disciplines dealing with gendered peace movements in the 1980s primarily in the Nordic countries, but also from other regions. One of the primary aims of this workshop is to begin identifying and exploring the transnational exchange of ideas, activities, and interpersonal contacts between gendered peace activists.
Please submit your abstracts (no more than 300 words) and a short bio no later than December 10, 2025. All selected workshop presenters will have their travel to Sweden (economy class within Europe) covered. Two nights of hotel accommodation will also be provided.
The workshop will result in the publication of a special issue in a relevant high quality journal. All workshop participants will be required to submit a 5000-6000 word draft prior to the workshop (sent to the organisers by January 25, 2026). Please, send your application to; yulia.gradskova@sh.se and hannah.k.yoken@jyu.fi.
Workshop organizers:
Hannah Kaarina Yoken –University of Jyväskylä Heidi Kurvinen – University of Bergen Sanela Bajramović – Örebro University Valgerður Pálmadóttir – University of Akureyri Yulia Gradskova – Södertörn University
Cited works:
Bjorgulfsdottir, M. (1989) “The Paradox of a Neutral Ally: A Historical Overview of Iceland’s Participation in NATO”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 13(1) What drives diplomacy (winter 1989), pp. 71–94. Fazzi, D. (2016) “The Nuclear Freeze Generation: The Early 1980s Anti-Nuclear Movement between ’Carter’s Vietnam’ and ’Euroshima’”, in Andersen, K. & van der Steen, B. (ed.) A European Youth Revolt: European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s: 145–158. Palgrave Macmillan. Hagemann, A. & Bramsen, I. (2019) “New Nordic Peace”, Nordic Council of Ministers. Ingimundarson, V. (2001). Uppgjör við umheiminn. Samskipti Íslands við Bandaríkin og NATO 1960–1974. Reykajvík: Edda Publishing. McCarthy, H., Sharp, I., Beers, L., Sluga, G., Donert C. & Pankhurst, H. (2015) “Women, peace and transnationalactivism, a century on”, https://www.historyandpolicy.org/dialogues/discussions/women-peace-and-transnational-activism-a-century-on Murray, S. (2006) “«Make pies not war»: Protests by the women’s peace movement of the mid-1980s”, Australian Historical Studies 37 (127): 81–94. Painter, D. (1999) The Cold War: An International History. London: Routledge. Peterson, A. (1992) Women as collective actors: A Case Study of the Swedish Women’s Peace Movement 1898-1990, Gothenburg University. Roseneil, S. (1997) “The Global Common: Dynamics of the Women’s Peace Movement in the 1980s”, in A. Scott (ed)The Limits of Globalization, 55–71, Routledge. Roseneil, S. (2000) Common Women, Uncommon Practices: The Queer Feminism of Greenham, Cassel. Rosengren, E. (2020) Gendering Nuclear (Dis)armament, Stockholm University. Wettig, G. (2009) “The last Soviet Offensive in the Cold War: Emergence and Development of the Campaign against NATO Euromissiles, 1979–1983: Origins of the Second Cold War”, Cold War History 9(1): 79–110. Yoken, H. K. (2025) “Liennytyksen puolesta, ydinsotaa vastaan : Sukupuolinäkökulma 1980-luvun kotimaisiin rauhanmarsseihin”, Lähihistoria 4(1): 106–129.