War, identity and the liberal state : everyday experiences of the geopolitical in the Armed Forces / Victoria M. Basham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Basham, Victoria.

Series:

Interventions (Routledge (Firm))

Interventions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain. Army--Military life.

Great Britain.

Great Britain. Army.

Sociology, Military--Great Britain.

Sociology, Military.

Soldiers--Great Britain--Attitudes.

Soldiers.

Women soldiers--Great Britain--Social conditions.

Women soldiers.

Sex role--Great Britain.

Sex role.

Masculinity.

Social conditions.

Masculinity--Great Britain.

Great Britain--Race relations.

Race relations.

Geopolitics.

Physical Description:

xvii, 208 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2013.

Summary:

War, Identity and the Liberal State critically examines the significance of gender, race and sexuality to wars waged by liberal states and the soldiers who wage them. Drawing on original fieldwork research with British soldiers, it offers insights into how their lived experiences are shaped by, and shape, a politics of gender, race and sexuality that not only underpin power relations in the military, but a wider geopolitics of war. It explores how shared and collectively mediated knowledge on gender, race and sexuality facilitates certain claims about the nature of governing in liberal states and about why and how such states wage war against 'illiberal' ones in pursuit of global peace and security. In linking the politics of daily life to the international, this book insists that it is vital to explore how geopolitical events and practices are co-constituted, reinforced and contested in everyday experiences, practices and spaces. The book also urges scholars interested in the linguistic construction of geopolitics to consider the ways in which everyday objects, spaces and bodies also reinforce particular ideas about war, identity and statehood and some of their violent consequences. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international studies, security, gender and feminist studies and critical and social theory. Book jacket.

Contents:

Glossary of military terminology and acronyms

Basic rank structure of the British Armed Forces

Introduction

the geopolitics of the everyday in the Armed Forces

"In the flesh": an introductory tale

War, identity and the liberal state

Researching the geopolitics of the everyday: an invitation to fieldwork

Theorising the geopolitics of the everyday: from experience to performance

Visualising intra-activity

Outline of the book

Materialising identity and the British warfare state

British society must be defended

Mind the gap

Support the troops

This green and pleasant land

Securing the peace

Welfare state, warfare state

For Queen and country?

A man's duty?

Intimacies of war and gender: the politics of women's bodies in war

Gender-in-the-making

The biopolitics of gender and the war on terror

"Just warriors" and "beautiful souls"

Beautiful bodies

Natural born killers?

Sexy bodies

Reproductive bodies

Weak and leaky bodies

Deploying beautiful souls

The body resists

Forbidden intimacies: rethinking military masculinities through heteronormativity and desire

A brief history of sexuality in the British military

Here and queer

Heteronormativity and the limits of tolerance

Heterosexual potency

Military masculinities, homoeroticism and desire

Military masculinities and the geopolitics of desire

Imperial encounters and the structural privileging of whiteness

Protectors of the realm

Who are the "ethnics"?

Political (in)correctness?

"Martial races"

The "War on Terror"

Racisms

old and new

Concluding thoughts

the march of progress?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415583411

0415583411

OCLC:

548660395