The EU-Guns / GlobArms Joint Workshop – New Perspectives on the History of Firearms: Global Markets, Gun Control and Gun Cultures in the Contemporary World brings together scholars working on the historical circulation, regulation, and social meanings of firearms across different world regions. The event is conceived as a dialogue between the STARS GlobArms project – focused on the global movements, monitoring infrastructures, and commercial dynamics of firearms from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War – and the ERC EU-Guns project, which investigates the practices, cultures, norms, and everyday implications of lawful gun carrying in modern Europe.

By assembling case studies from Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia, the workshop aims to foster a comparative reflection on how firearms have shaped political orders, market logics, state-building processes, and cultures of violence. Contributions address a wide range of themes, including transimperial arms trading, paramilitary mobilization, colonial and post-colonial gun regimes, war trophies and the cultural afterlives of weapons, as well as contemporary debates on gun control and gun identities.

Through a series of thematic sessions and discussions, the workshop seeks to rethink established historiographical paradigms by examining firearms as global commodities, regulatory objects, and social artefacts. In doing so, it highlights the value of interdisciplinary and transnational approaches for understanding the enduring role of guns in modern and contemporary history, and it aims to open new avenues for future research on the intersections between technology, violence, and state authority.