Maskuliinisuuden mielikuvat

Arvosteltu teos: Soldiering and the making of Finnish manhood: Conscription and masculinity in interwar Finland, 1918-1939 / Anders Ahlbäck. Åbo : Åbo Akademi, 2010

Auf dem Weg zu einer globalen Sozialgeschichte? Neuere Studien zur Globalgeschichte des Bürgertums

This contribution presents an overview on the numerous studies on the history of non-European middle classes which have been published within the last few years. It argues that the establishing of middle classes in different parts of the world can be construed to a considerable extent as the result of global entanglements in the long nineteenth century. The article further discusses the epistemological problems, however also the advantages, of describing these social groups which emerged in the non-European world in the age of empire with European concepts such as bourgeoisie or middle classes. And it explores whether an examination of their history could be extended to a global social history in a next step.publishe

The figure of the officer : class, gender, and military hierarchy in the Swiss army in the 1930s and 1940s

Taking the example of military education and everyday life in the Swiss army during the World War II, this article aims to address two issues that have so far only found marginal consideration in most studies of military history. First, the article attempts to explore in what way the military hierarchy was gendered, thus borrowing from Joan Scott s argument that the category of gender can be useful for studying power relationships within social institutions. Second, it will discuss the extent to which this gendered system of command and subordination was linked with the concept of class and it will examine the role of the army as a training camp for establishing relations of social power. It will be argued that the figure of the officer functions to interconnect these two aspects, since it incorporated a form of manliness which can be characterized as hegemonic masculinity