Biosphere of War

This proposal introduces the “biosphere of war” as a novel framework for understanding how conflict reshapes social, ecological, and biological systems into a self-sustaining ecology of harm. War is proposed as a transformation of the living environment, generating recursive feedback loops of injury, toxicity, social rupture, and infrastructural collapse that endure across generations. Through seven interdisciplinary workstreams integrating clinical, epidemiological, environmental, historical and ethnographic methodologies, the programme examines how war reorganises life from the cellular to the societal. 5 core workstreams will investigate paediatric traumatic injury (Lebanon), child and maternal health (Gaza), WASH system collapse (Gaza), antimicrobial resistance (Lebanon) and post-war cancer burden (Iraq), each revealing how war embeds harm biologically, socially, and environmentally. An oral histories workstream illuminates lived experiences and an overarching conceptual workstream develops the theoretical architecture and shared language needed for this emerging field. Community engagement underscores the importance of local narratives and the limitations of siloed postwar recovery models. By reconceptualising war as a biospheric transformation, where the environment itself becomes a weapon, the project aims to generate more accurate measures of indirect mortality, guide comprehensive recovery planning, and strengthen ethical and legal accountability, offering a globally relevant framework rooted in Middle Eastern realities.