Description
The presence of foreigners and the role they play in conflicts abroad has increasingly become part of the public discourse. This has most recently been portrayed in the cases of fighting both for and against the Islamic State, but also with the creation of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Both contexts have resulted in questions regarding continuation and escalation of the conflicts, but also what happens when these individuals decide to return to their home countries. This paper takes a narrative approach in understanding the relationship between the state and its citizens joining a foreign conflict, in this case that of the war in Ukraine since 2014. Crucially, it analyses the shifts in construction and reaction to the German foreign fighter before and after the Russian invasion in 2022. It argues that not only is the question of ‘who’ is joining the conflict critical, but also which ‘side’ the individual finds itself on. The paper provides an important contribution to understanding the differences in time and context and how this affect’ the (potential) returnees’ threat perception.
