Grievability and civilian harm in Weaponizing Civilian Protection

This paper centres on the idea of grievability employed by Thomas Gregory in Weaponizing Civilian Protection (OUP 2025). Earlier work in international relations focuses on the post mortem dimensions of grievability. Gregory, in comparison, stresses the operations of grievability in life. His aim, to demonstrate how civilian protection was weaponized in Afghanistan, and how that weaponization functioned to devalue and dehumanize Afghan citizens. This is visible in (amongst other things) the practice of counting civilian casualties, which Gregory contends, was instrumentalized to enable officials to respond more effectively to claims of civilian harm, raising questions of who is countable and when. While Gregory’s account of grievability is highly persuasive, questions remain about what kind of racialized logic underpins the civilian protection and mitigation measures discussed in the book, what a non-Western account of grievability might look like, and what might be required to ensure the principle of equal grievability.