Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links

The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that occurs in the training and use of men's capacity for violence in the armed services. However, women's relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of today's armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the ‘masculinist’ postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism

A Nanosatellite Mission to Investigate Equatorial Ionospheric Plasma Depletions: The U. S. Air Force Academy’s FalconSat-2

An overview of the United States Air Force Academy’s (USAFA’s) FalconSat-2, a nanosatellite designed to investigate F region ionospheric plasma depletions, is presented. Instruments aboard FalconSat-2 will sample in situ plasma density and temperature at a rate of 10 Hz and 1.0 Hz, respectively. The choice of sampling rate provides for resolution of 2-10 km plasma depletions, important since plasma anisotropies of this scale size are known to disrupt Ultra High Frequency (UHF) radio transmissions. A novel sensor, the Miniature Electrostatic Analyzer (MESA), is presently under development by USAFA faculty and will be used to measure plasma density with its heritage flight aboard FalconSat-2. In addition, a traditional electron Retarding Potential Analyzer (RPA) will be used to measure plasma temperature and density, the latter of which will be used to validate the MESA performance on orbit. The mission’s scientific objectives require a low altitude (300-500 km), medium inclination (45 degrees) orbit; these requirements, coupled with the availability of launch opportunities through the Space Shuttle’s Hitchhiker Program, provide motivation to develop the FalconSat-2 mission for launch via the Hitchhiker’s Palette Ejection System (PES). The satellite bus design consists of a mixture of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and original design by USAFA cadets and faculty. Details of the mission and satellite design, as well as key challenges uniquely pertinent to undergraduate satellite programs, are addressed

Women, ethnicity and nationalisms in Latin America

Gutierrez Chong, Natividad (ed. lit.) "Women, ethnicity and nationalisms in Latin America". Aldershot : Ashgate, 2007. 235 p. ISBN 978-075-464-925-0Nationalism is a multifaceted phenomenon that has recently become a focus of redefinition through new multidisciplinary and multi-method approaches. The complex links among gender, ethnicity and nationalism, neglected for a long time in academic research, are increasingly receiving coverage in the scholarly literature. The book "Women, Ethnicity and Nationalisms in Latin America”, edited by Natividad Gutiérrez Chong, systematically explores these links in the context of Latin America, with case studies covering Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Mexico. Contributions are by leading Latin American scholars from diverse academic fields who share the aim of overcoming the limitations of the Eurocentric and androcentric framework that characterizes the main approaches to nationalism

Critical methods in international relations: the politics of techniques, devices and acts

Methods have increasingly been placed at the heart of theoretical and empirical research in IR and social sciences more generally. This article explores the role of methods in International Relations and argues that methods can be part of a critical project if reconceptualised away from neutral techniques of organising empirical material and research design. It proposes a two-pronged reconceptualisation of critical methods as devices which enact worlds and acts which disrupt particular worlds. Developing this conceptualisation allows us to foreground questions of knowledge and politics as stakes of method and methodology rather than exclusively of ontology, epistemology or theory. It also allows us to move away from the dominance of scientificity (and its weaker versions of systematicity and rigour) to understand methods as less pure, less formal, messier and more experimental, carrying substantive political visions

Forces Sauces and Eggs for Soldiers: food, nostalgia, and the rehabilitation of the British military

This article identifies, and considers the political implications of, the association of the contemporary British military and British soldiers with nostalgia. This aspect of the discursive project of rehabilitating the British military post-Iraq has not hitherto been theorized. The article analyses a set of exemplifying texts, four military charity food brands (Eggs for Soldiers, Forces Sauces, Red Lion Foods, and Rare Tea Company Battle of Britain Tea) to ask how nostalgic rehabilitation of the British military unfolds at the intersections of militarization, commemoration, and post-2008 “conscience capitalism”. I outline how military charity food brands are a form of “conscience capitalism” through which the perpetuation of militarized logics are produced as a notionally apolitical social “cause”, rendered intelligible within the terms of existing commoditized discourses of post-2008 vintage nostalgia. I then ask what understandings of British soldiers and the British military are constituted within the discourse of nostalgic rehabilitation, and secondly what forms of commemoration are entailed. I argue that a nostalgic generalization of soldiers and the military nullifies the potential unruliness of individual soldiers and obscures the specifics of recent, controversial, wars. Secondly nostalgic civil–military engagement entails a commemorative logic in which forms of quasi-military service are brought into the most banal spaces of everyday civilian life

Researching "British [Muslim] Values": Vernacular politics, digital storytelling, and participant researchers

This article reflects on methodological decisions, strategies, and challenges from a recent interdisciplinary project on the relationship between ‘British values’ and Islam. The project employed digital storytelling to access ‘everyday’ conceptions and constructions of this contentious relationship. The research was undertaken by participant researchers recruited from Muslim communities in the UK’s East Anglia region, working with academics from media studies and political science. In this article we offer a detailed account of key moments relating especially to recruitment, retention, and the production of digital content. It offers two contributions. First, methodological guidance for researchers interested in combining participatory research with digital storytelling. And, second, rationale for so doing given the methodology’s scope for producing rich visual content with capacity (i) to deepen and disrupt established knowledge, and (ii) to change the views, ideas and aspirations of those involved in the content’s creation

Women, know your limits: Cultural sexism in academia

Despite the considerable advances of the feminist movement across Western societies, in Universities women are less likely to be promoted, or paid as much as their male colleagues, or even get jobs in the first place. One way in which we can start to reflect on why this might be the case is through hearing the experiences of women academics themselves. Using feminist methodology, this article attempts to unpack and explore just some examples of ‘cultural sexism’ which characterise the working lives of many women in British academia.This article uses qualitative methods to describe and make sense of just some of those experiences. In so doing, the argument is also made that the activity of academia is profoundly gendered and this explicit acknowledgement may contribute to our understanding of the under-representation of women in senior positions

Forum: Militarization 2.0: Communication and the Normalization of Political Violence in the Digital Age

Scholars of international relations frequently explore how states normalize the use of military force through processes of militarization, yet few have analyzed how new information and communication technologies impact on these processes. The essays in this forum address this gap, and consider the political significance of new technologies, new actors, and new practices that shape “Militarization 2.0” and normalize political violence in the digital age. The authors in this forum rely, to varying degrees, on common militarized tropes and dichotomies (such as authenticity, belonging, and (de)humanizing framings) that are key to militarization, including those devices that rest on gender, race/ethnicity, and heteronormativity. Moving beyond a military-centered approach to militarization, the authors’ questions cover ministries of foreign affairs; the embodied performances of celebrity leaders and insurgency groups; arms producers, the military video game industry, and private military and security companies; and violence entrepreneurs. The forum closes with reflections from Cynthia Enloe

State business: gender, sex and marriage in Tajikistan

This article examines the relation of the state to masculinity and sexuality by way of an exploration of the sexual problems of a young man and his wife in Tajikistan at the end of the Soviet era. It suggests that the regime’s inattention to this kind of issue was bound up with the importance to the state of projecting appropriate versions of masculinity. It further posits the idea that the continued refusal of the independent Tajik state to offer appropriate treatments for sexual dysfunction is consistent with the image of modernity President Rahmon wishes to present to the world. The article shows that as masculinity discursively occupies the superior gender position, with men expected to dominate, the state is itself impotent to respond when they are, in fact, unable to do so in sexual practice. However, the myth of male dominance persists to the point that it may prevent women from seeing beyond their subordination and finding mutually beneficial solutions in their familial and sexual relationships

Mothers of Soldiers in Wartime: A National News Narrative

National news media represent mothers of US combat soldiers in the Iraq War as archetypal good mothers, that is, mothers who continue their maternal work even after their children are deployed. However, not all mothers are depicted as the archetypal patriotic mother, i.e., a good mother who is also stoic and silent about the war and her child\u27s role in it. Mothers of soldiers are portrayed as good mothers who sometimes also voice their attitudes about the war effort. The maternal attitudes ranged from complete support for the war to opposition to the war but support for the soldiers. The findings suggest a picture of wartime motherhood that is more nuanced than the historical image of the patriotic mother suggests