Victoria M Basham | Cardiff University (original) (raw)
Papers by Victoria M Basham
Critical military studies, May 3, 2022
Review of International Studies
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define co...
![Research paper thumbnail of Johnson, Jamie M., Victoria M. Basham and Owen D. Thomas (2022) ‘Ordering Disorder: The Making of World Politics’, Review of International Studies [Online First]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/84671509/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Review of International Studies, 2022
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define contemporary world politics.
International Relations, 2021
This is t h e a u t h o r's v e r sio n of a w o r k t h a t w a s s u b mi t t e d t o / a c c e... more This is t h e a u t h o r's v e r sio n of a w o r k t h a t w a s s u b mi t t e d t o / a c c e p t e d fo r p u blic a tio n. Cit a tio n fo r fin al p u blis h e d ve r sio n: B a s h a m , Vict o ri a 2 0 2 1. A n e c e s s a rily hi s t o ric al m a t e ri alis t m o m e n t ? F e mi ni s t r efl e c tio n s o n t h e n e e d fo r g r o u n d e d c ri ti q u e in a n a g e of c ri sis. In t e r n a tio n al R el a tio n s 3 5 (1) , p p .
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2018
The feminized imaginary of "home and hearth" has long been central to the notion of soldiering as... more The feminized imaginary of "home and hearth" has long been central to the notion of soldiering as masculinist protection. Soldiering and war are not only materialized by gendered imaginaries of home and hearth though, but through everyday labors enacted within the home. Focusing on in-depth qualitative research with women partners and spouses of British Army reservists, we examine how women's everyday domestic and emotional labor enables reservists to serve, constituting "hearth and home" as a site through which war is made possible. As reservistswho are still overwhelmingly heterosexual menbecome increasingly called upon by the state, one must consider how the changing nature of the Army's procurement of soldiers is also changing demands on women's labor. Feminist IPE scholars have shown broader trends in the outsourcing of labor to women and its privatization. Our research similarly underscores the significance of everyday gendered labor to the geopolitical. Moreover, we highlight the fragility of military power, given that women can withdraw their labor at any time. The article concludes that paying attention to women's everyday labor in the home facilitates greater understanding of one of the key sites through which war is both materialized and challenged.
Security Dialogue, 2018
The use and maintenance of military force as a means of achieving security makes the identity and... more The use and maintenance of military force as a means of achieving security makes the identity and continued existence of states as legitimate protectors of populations intelligible. In liberal democracies, however, where individual freedom is the condition of existence, citizens have to be motivated to cede some of that freedom in exchange for security. Accordingly, liberal militarism becomes possible only when military action and preparedness become meaningful responses to threats posed to the social body, not just the state, meaning that it relies on co-constitutive practices of the geopolitical and the everyday. Through a feminist discursive analysis of British airstrikes in Syria and attendant debates on Syrian refugees, I examine how liberal militarism is animated through these co-constitutive sites, with differential effects. Paying particular attention to gender and race, I argue that militarism is an outcome of social practices characterized as much by everyday desires and a...
The Militarization of Childhood, 2011
Militarization is perhaps best described as “a multilayered process through which military approa... more Militarization is perhaps best described as “a multilayered process through which military approaches to political problems gain elite and popular acceptance” (Kuus 2009: 546). One example of this, which provides the focus for this chapter, is the resurgence of a longstanding social belief that military service is an effective way to discipline children1 and to deliver them from a life of violent crime. In recent years, there have been a number of high profile shootings and stabbings in the UK involving children, and more specifically male, working class teens who comprise the majority of both perpetrators and victims of such violence. The popular notion that British children should undergo compulsory military training to “reduce antisocial behaviour” (Scotsman 2009) and to avert the gun and knife crime “epidemic” plaguing childhood in the UK (Webster and Roper 2007; Hope and Tibbetts 2008; Squires 2009), lends itself to a misleading dichotomy, however. It simplistically positions the organized violence of military service (good) in opposition to the disorganized violence of youth gangs (bad). Instead, working from the premise that child gun and knife crime is inextricably bound to the militarization of British society, I argue that the organized/disorganized dichotomy obscures significant links between those working class boys and teens who become involved in street violence and those that become soldiers.
Critical Studies on Security, 2015
Her research focuses on issues of gender, race, class and sexuality in relation to militaries, mi... more Her research focuses on issues of gender, race, class and sexuality in relation to militaries, militarism and militarization.
Critical Military Studies, 2015
Security Dialogue, 2020
The notions that military violence engenders security and that military service is a selfless and... more The notions that military violence engenders security and that military service is a selfless and necessary act are orthodoxies in political, military and scholarly debate. The UK Army Reserve’s recent expansion prompts reconsideration of this orthodoxy, particularly in relation to the suggestion that reservists serve selflessly. Drawing on fieldwork with British Army reservists and their spouses/partners, we examine how this orthodoxy allows reservists to engage in everyday embodied performances, and occasionally articulations, of the need to serve, in order to free themselves up from household responsibilities. This supposed necessity of military service necessitates heteropatriarchal divisions of labour, which facilitate participation in military service and the state’s ability to conduct war/war preparations. However, while reserve service is represented as sacrificial and necessary, it is far more self-serving and is better understood as ‘serious leisure’, an activity whose per...
Norma, 2008
Though the idea of a civil-military gap has long been privileged by military officials and many s... more Though the idea of a civil-military gap has long been privileged by military officials and many scholars of armed forces, dividing ‘civilian’ from ‘military’ has important implications for the negotiation of identities within the armed forces. By drawing on research with members of the British military on social diversity in their organisation, this paper examines how hegemonic military masculinities are reinforced by the division of military and civilian. It explores how gendered and sexual assumptions about ‘the soldier’ in the military, and wider society, continue to shape the war system and limit the participation of ‘less-traditional’ recruits in the modern armed forces. Gendered constructions of soldiering can facilitate conditions in which the commitment, motivations and contributions of women and sexual minorities, in particular, are more likely to be questioned than those of the (presumed) heterosexual servicemen who dominate the armed forces statistically and culturally. N...
The appropriate control and expression of emotion are integral to becoming and being recognisable... more The appropriate control and expression of emotion are integral to becoming and being recognisable as a soldier. The regulation of emotion in military settings is profoundly gendered. As a gender-conforming role for men but a gender-nonconforming role for women, the ways in which military men and women perform emotion, and how this comes to be understood, is often dependent on wider gendered assumptions about what men and women are and should be. As such, this chapter considers how gender appropriate and inappropriate displays of emotion operate and what they reveal about the regulation of emotion in enabling war. International Relations has repeatedly overlooked how “emotions not only represent a particular feeling or sensibility but also actively shape the world around us and the bodies of those that populate it” (Åhäll & Gregory, 2013: 117; Crawford, 2000; Sylvester, 2010). With notable exceptions (inter alia Hockey, 1986; Higate, 1998; Eichler, 2012; MacKenzie, 2012), much resear...
War in History, 2015
chapter is an examination of a selection of ‘Excerpts’ from both Latin and vernacular versions of... more chapter is an examination of a selection of ‘Excerpts’ from both Latin and vernacular versions of DRM. Here, Allmand misleadingly concludes that ‘other than in general terms’ the work of the mind-ninth-century Carolingian scholar Hrabanus Maurus ‘may have had little practical influence outside the walls of the monastery where it was written’ (p. 216), yet, as Archbishop of Mainz, Hrabanus makes clear that he is adding considerable detail to DRM for use in ‘modern times’ and dedicated it to King Lothar II, who travelled on campaign with a chest filled with books. The final chapter of this section treats various examples of DRM in print, a topic far too lengthy and complex for the few pages devoted to it, though Allmand provides a useful introduction to it. Part III, entitled ‘The legacy: the De re militari in medieval military thought and practice’, embodies, following a brief introduction, ten specific topics and a conclusion. Here the reader is overwhelmed by the repetition of material developed in the first two sections, and this leads me to observe that Allmand’s organization of the work, as a whole, is not satisfactory. The volume is completed with two appendices dealing, respectively, with a very useful selection of vernacular terms used in translations of DRM and a list of manuscripts, which could have been limited to additions and corrections of material already found in Richardot’s list. There is also a good bibliography and a useful index. Finally, there are 15 pictorial exemplars, which, while interesting, could have been deployed to greater effect. Allmand’s book should have been entitled so that its focus on the late Middle Ages is made clear. Treatment of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with excursions into the thirteenth century are very important, but Allmand’s scanty treatment of pre-Crusade Europe will likely leave most of his fellow late medievalists with a seriously mistaken view of the influence of DRM in the early Middle Ages. Much of what Allmand has to say about the early Middle Ages is, at best, misleading. Attention to early medieval logistics, for example, is credited only to Charlemagne. Similarly, he ignores the fact that sieges dominated warfare before c.1100, and states that, while the twelfth century saw a ‘growing importance of the siege’ (p. 305), it was only in the fifteenth century that ‘sieges . . . took on an importance of their own’ (p. 339). Allmand seems unable to shake the discredited ‘feudal’ modifier (e.g. pp. 279, 282, 312, 313, 335), and as has trouble dealing with foot soldiers. On the whole, however, The De Re Militari of Vegetius is a valuable work and required reading for anyone interested in medieval military history.
Men and Masculinities, 2012
Handbook on Gender and War
Feminists have long argued that gender has historically shaped and continues to shape who fights ... more Feminists have long argued that gender has historically shaped and continues to shape who fights and dies, and in defence of whom. This chapter explores how state militaries continue to rely on gender constructs to motivate predominantly male soldiers to conduct acts of state sanctioned violence. It examines how gendered norms shape how militaries organize themselves and prepare for war, despite overwhelming evidence that the presence of women and sexual minorities has no discernible negative impact on military cohesion and performance and that soldiers do not need to bond socially in order to fight. It argues that militaries remain highly masculinised institutions because this is how militaries desire to see themselves and how most of their male members desire being seen. The masculinized character of military culture
Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2021
Review of International Studies
This article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British... more This article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British Army Reserves. The project, which examined the everyday work-Army-life balance challenges that reservists face, and the roles of their partners/spouses in enabling them to fulfil their military commitments, is an example of a potential contribution to the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, where publicly funded research has come to be seen as ‘functional’ for political, military, economic, and social advancement. As feminist interpretive researchers examining an institution that prizes masculinist and functionalist methodologies, instrumentalised knowledge production, and highly formalised ethics approval processes, we faced multiple challenges to how we were able to conduct our research, who we were able to access, and what we were able to say. We show how military assumptions about what constitutes proper ‘research’, bolstered by knowledge economy logics, reinforces gendered power relatio...
Discovering Childhood in International Relations
Critical Studies on Terrorism
Critical military studies, May 3, 2022
Review of International Studies
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define co...
Review of International Studies, 2022
This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by foc... more This article offers insights into the character and composition of world order. It does so by focusing on how world order is made and revealed through seemingly disorderly events. We examine how societies struggle to interpret and respond to disorderly events through three modes of treatment: tragedy, crisis, and scandal. These, we argue, are the dominant modes of treatment in world politics, through which an account of disorder is articulated and particular political responses are mobilised. Specifically, we argue that each mode provides a particular way of problematising disorder, locating responsibility, and generating political responses. As we will demonstrate, these modes instigate the ordering of disorder, but they also agitate and reveal the contours of order itself. We argue, therefore, that an attentiveness to how we make sense of and respond to disorder offers the discipline new opportunities for interrogating the underlying forces, dynamics, and structures that define contemporary world politics.
International Relations, 2021
This is t h e a u t h o r's v e r sio n of a w o r k t h a t w a s s u b mi t t e d t o / a c c e... more This is t h e a u t h o r's v e r sio n of a w o r k t h a t w a s s u b mi t t e d t o / a c c e p t e d fo r p u blic a tio n. Cit a tio n fo r fin al p u blis h e d ve r sio n: B a s h a m , Vict o ri a 2 0 2 1. A n e c e s s a rily hi s t o ric al m a t e ri alis t m o m e n t ? F e mi ni s t r efl e c tio n s o n t h e n e e d fo r g r o u n d e d c ri ti q u e in a n a g e of c ri sis. In t e r n a tio n al R el a tio n s 3 5 (1) , p p .
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2018
The feminized imaginary of "home and hearth" has long been central to the notion of soldiering as... more The feminized imaginary of "home and hearth" has long been central to the notion of soldiering as masculinist protection. Soldiering and war are not only materialized by gendered imaginaries of home and hearth though, but through everyday labors enacted within the home. Focusing on in-depth qualitative research with women partners and spouses of British Army reservists, we examine how women's everyday domestic and emotional labor enables reservists to serve, constituting "hearth and home" as a site through which war is made possible. As reservistswho are still overwhelmingly heterosexual menbecome increasingly called upon by the state, one must consider how the changing nature of the Army's procurement of soldiers is also changing demands on women's labor. Feminist IPE scholars have shown broader trends in the outsourcing of labor to women and its privatization. Our research similarly underscores the significance of everyday gendered labor to the geopolitical. Moreover, we highlight the fragility of military power, given that women can withdraw their labor at any time. The article concludes that paying attention to women's everyday labor in the home facilitates greater understanding of one of the key sites through which war is both materialized and challenged.
Security Dialogue, 2018
The use and maintenance of military force as a means of achieving security makes the identity and... more The use and maintenance of military force as a means of achieving security makes the identity and continued existence of states as legitimate protectors of populations intelligible. In liberal democracies, however, where individual freedom is the condition of existence, citizens have to be motivated to cede some of that freedom in exchange for security. Accordingly, liberal militarism becomes possible only when military action and preparedness become meaningful responses to threats posed to the social body, not just the state, meaning that it relies on co-constitutive practices of the geopolitical and the everyday. Through a feminist discursive analysis of British airstrikes in Syria and attendant debates on Syrian refugees, I examine how liberal militarism is animated through these co-constitutive sites, with differential effects. Paying particular attention to gender and race, I argue that militarism is an outcome of social practices characterized as much by everyday desires and a...
The Militarization of Childhood, 2011
Militarization is perhaps best described as “a multilayered process through which military approa... more Militarization is perhaps best described as “a multilayered process through which military approaches to political problems gain elite and popular acceptance” (Kuus 2009: 546). One example of this, which provides the focus for this chapter, is the resurgence of a longstanding social belief that military service is an effective way to discipline children1 and to deliver them from a life of violent crime. In recent years, there have been a number of high profile shootings and stabbings in the UK involving children, and more specifically male, working class teens who comprise the majority of both perpetrators and victims of such violence. The popular notion that British children should undergo compulsory military training to “reduce antisocial behaviour” (Scotsman 2009) and to avert the gun and knife crime “epidemic” plaguing childhood in the UK (Webster and Roper 2007; Hope and Tibbetts 2008; Squires 2009), lends itself to a misleading dichotomy, however. It simplistically positions the organized violence of military service (good) in opposition to the disorganized violence of youth gangs (bad). Instead, working from the premise that child gun and knife crime is inextricably bound to the militarization of British society, I argue that the organized/disorganized dichotomy obscures significant links between those working class boys and teens who become involved in street violence and those that become soldiers.
Critical Studies on Security, 2015
Her research focuses on issues of gender, race, class and sexuality in relation to militaries, mi... more Her research focuses on issues of gender, race, class and sexuality in relation to militaries, militarism and militarization.
Critical Military Studies, 2015
Security Dialogue, 2020
The notions that military violence engenders security and that military service is a selfless and... more The notions that military violence engenders security and that military service is a selfless and necessary act are orthodoxies in political, military and scholarly debate. The UK Army Reserve’s recent expansion prompts reconsideration of this orthodoxy, particularly in relation to the suggestion that reservists serve selflessly. Drawing on fieldwork with British Army reservists and their spouses/partners, we examine how this orthodoxy allows reservists to engage in everyday embodied performances, and occasionally articulations, of the need to serve, in order to free themselves up from household responsibilities. This supposed necessity of military service necessitates heteropatriarchal divisions of labour, which facilitate participation in military service and the state’s ability to conduct war/war preparations. However, while reserve service is represented as sacrificial and necessary, it is far more self-serving and is better understood as ‘serious leisure’, an activity whose per...
Norma, 2008
Though the idea of a civil-military gap has long been privileged by military officials and many s... more Though the idea of a civil-military gap has long been privileged by military officials and many scholars of armed forces, dividing ‘civilian’ from ‘military’ has important implications for the negotiation of identities within the armed forces. By drawing on research with members of the British military on social diversity in their organisation, this paper examines how hegemonic military masculinities are reinforced by the division of military and civilian. It explores how gendered and sexual assumptions about ‘the soldier’ in the military, and wider society, continue to shape the war system and limit the participation of ‘less-traditional’ recruits in the modern armed forces. Gendered constructions of soldiering can facilitate conditions in which the commitment, motivations and contributions of women and sexual minorities, in particular, are more likely to be questioned than those of the (presumed) heterosexual servicemen who dominate the armed forces statistically and culturally. N...
The appropriate control and expression of emotion are integral to becoming and being recognisable... more The appropriate control and expression of emotion are integral to becoming and being recognisable as a soldier. The regulation of emotion in military settings is profoundly gendered. As a gender-conforming role for men but a gender-nonconforming role for women, the ways in which military men and women perform emotion, and how this comes to be understood, is often dependent on wider gendered assumptions about what men and women are and should be. As such, this chapter considers how gender appropriate and inappropriate displays of emotion operate and what they reveal about the regulation of emotion in enabling war. International Relations has repeatedly overlooked how “emotions not only represent a particular feeling or sensibility but also actively shape the world around us and the bodies of those that populate it” (Åhäll & Gregory, 2013: 117; Crawford, 2000; Sylvester, 2010). With notable exceptions (inter alia Hockey, 1986; Higate, 1998; Eichler, 2012; MacKenzie, 2012), much resear...
War in History, 2015
chapter is an examination of a selection of ‘Excerpts’ from both Latin and vernacular versions of... more chapter is an examination of a selection of ‘Excerpts’ from both Latin and vernacular versions of DRM. Here, Allmand misleadingly concludes that ‘other than in general terms’ the work of the mind-ninth-century Carolingian scholar Hrabanus Maurus ‘may have had little practical influence outside the walls of the monastery where it was written’ (p. 216), yet, as Archbishop of Mainz, Hrabanus makes clear that he is adding considerable detail to DRM for use in ‘modern times’ and dedicated it to King Lothar II, who travelled on campaign with a chest filled with books. The final chapter of this section treats various examples of DRM in print, a topic far too lengthy and complex for the few pages devoted to it, though Allmand provides a useful introduction to it. Part III, entitled ‘The legacy: the De re militari in medieval military thought and practice’, embodies, following a brief introduction, ten specific topics and a conclusion. Here the reader is overwhelmed by the repetition of material developed in the first two sections, and this leads me to observe that Allmand’s organization of the work, as a whole, is not satisfactory. The volume is completed with two appendices dealing, respectively, with a very useful selection of vernacular terms used in translations of DRM and a list of manuscripts, which could have been limited to additions and corrections of material already found in Richardot’s list. There is also a good bibliography and a useful index. Finally, there are 15 pictorial exemplars, which, while interesting, could have been deployed to greater effect. Allmand’s book should have been entitled so that its focus on the late Middle Ages is made clear. Treatment of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with excursions into the thirteenth century are very important, but Allmand’s scanty treatment of pre-Crusade Europe will likely leave most of his fellow late medievalists with a seriously mistaken view of the influence of DRM in the early Middle Ages. Much of what Allmand has to say about the early Middle Ages is, at best, misleading. Attention to early medieval logistics, for example, is credited only to Charlemagne. Similarly, he ignores the fact that sieges dominated warfare before c.1100, and states that, while the twelfth century saw a ‘growing importance of the siege’ (p. 305), it was only in the fifteenth century that ‘sieges . . . took on an importance of their own’ (p. 339). Allmand seems unable to shake the discredited ‘feudal’ modifier (e.g. pp. 279, 282, 312, 313, 335), and as has trouble dealing with foot soldiers. On the whole, however, The De Re Militari of Vegetius is a valuable work and required reading for anyone interested in medieval military history.
Men and Masculinities, 2012
Handbook on Gender and War
Feminists have long argued that gender has historically shaped and continues to shape who fights ... more Feminists have long argued that gender has historically shaped and continues to shape who fights and dies, and in defence of whom. This chapter explores how state militaries continue to rely on gender constructs to motivate predominantly male soldiers to conduct acts of state sanctioned violence. It examines how gendered norms shape how militaries organize themselves and prepare for war, despite overwhelming evidence that the presence of women and sexual minorities has no discernible negative impact on military cohesion and performance and that soldiers do not need to bond socially in order to fight. It argues that militaries remain highly masculinised institutions because this is how militaries desire to see themselves and how most of their male members desire being seen. The masculinized character of military culture
Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2021
Review of International Studies
This article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British... more This article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British Army Reserves. The project, which examined the everyday work-Army-life balance challenges that reservists face, and the roles of their partners/spouses in enabling them to fulfil their military commitments, is an example of a potential contribution to the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, where publicly funded research has come to be seen as ‘functional’ for political, military, economic, and social advancement. As feminist interpretive researchers examining an institution that prizes masculinist and functionalist methodologies, instrumentalised knowledge production, and highly formalised ethics approval processes, we faced multiple challenges to how we were able to conduct our research, who we were able to access, and what we were able to say. We show how military assumptions about what constitutes proper ‘research’, bolstered by knowledge economy logics, reinforces gendered power relatio...
Discovering Childhood in International Relations
Critical Studies on Terrorism
War, Identity and the Liberal State critically examines the significance of gender, race and sexu... more 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.
Critical Military Studies provides a rigorous, innovative platform for interdisciplinary debate o... more Critical Military Studies provides a rigorous, innovative platform for interdisciplinary debate on the operation of military power. It encourages the interrogation and destabilization of often taken-for-granted categories related to the military, militarism and militarization. It especially welcomes original thinking on contradictions and tensions central to the ways in which military institutions and military power work, how such tensions are reproduced within different societies and geopolitical arenas, and within and beyond academic discourse. Contributions on experiences of militarization among groups and individuals, and in hitherto underexplored, perhaps even seemingly ‘non-military’ settings are also encouraged. All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to double-blind peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees. The Journal also includes a non-peer reviewed section, Encounters, showcasing multidisciplinary forms of critique such as film and photography, and engaging with policy debates and activism.