Pleasure and Depletion in Contemporary Militarism Julia Welland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Welland, Julia, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (192 p.)

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press, [2026]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Why do so many US service members, veterans and military families continue to affectively invest in militarism when the physical and emotional costs are so high? Conceptualises militarism as felt, drawing on insights from feminist International Relations, feminist cultural studies and critical military studiesDraws on, and adapts, the feminist political economy concept of depletion, locating it in the overarching structure of militarism as opposed to capitalismExplores how militarism is experienced both as sustaining (felt as love/support/comfort/solidarity) and depleting (as physical injury/emotional trauma/affective harms)Theorises both a structural and parasitic relationship between the pleasures and joys of militarism and its harms and depletionsUses three empirical sites (the Invictus Games, Warrior Games and Ms Veteran America) and draws on ethnographic reflections, non-participant observation, and in-depth qualitative interviews with military communities to build its theoretical and conceptual contributionsThis book asks why US service members, veterans and military families continue to affectively invest in militarism both as a structure of global politics and in their everyday lives when they have experienced first-hand, its physical and emotional costs? Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with military communities and ethnographic insights from a range of military sites, the book examines how those service members, veterans and military families who have been physically and emotionally depleted through their intimate relations to US militarism are the same individuals who have simultaneously experienced its concomitant pleasures, joys, and have built lives and worlds through their attachment to it. Ultimately, the book argues these dual and contradictory experiences are central to militarisms endurance in global politics; both through individuals continued affective investment in a militarised pathway and through the incremental and incomplete ways that militarism is reproduced in their everyday lives.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Feminist Curiosity about War and Militarism

1. Feeling Militarism

2. Pleasurable Bodies

3. Affected Bodies

4. Caring Bodies

5. Depleted Bodies

Conclusion: Affectively Sustaining Militarism

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed March 30 2026)

ISBN:

1-3995-3551-X

9781399535519