Civil-Military Entanglements: Anthropological Perspectives

by Birgitte Refslund Sørensen (Editor), Eyal Ben-Ari (Editor)

Overview

Military-civilian encounters are multiple and diverse in our times. Contributors to this volume demonstrate how military and civilian domains are constituted through entanglements undermining the classic civil-military binary and manifest themselves in unexpected places and manners. Moreover, the essays trace out the ripples, reverberations and resonations of civil-military entanglements in areas not usually associated with such ties, but which are nevertheless real and significant for an understanding of the roles war, violence and the military play in shaping contemporary societies and the everyday life of its citizens.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789201963
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/16/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	324
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Birgitte Refslund Sørensen until her death in 2019, was Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology in Copenhagen. With her background in conflict studies and political anthropology, Sørensen had been both practitioner and researcher on issues of post-conflict reconstruction for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and the Danish Refugee Council. Her latest publications include ”Veterans’ Homecomings”, Current Anthropology; ”Public commemorations of Danish Soldiers”, Critical Military Studies.

Eyal Ben-Ari is Director of the Center for Society, Security and Peace at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee. His main areas of research are the sociology of the armed forces, early childhood education, and popular culture in Asia. Among his recent books are (with Zev Lehrer, Uzi Ben-Shalom and Ariel Vainer) Rethinking the Sociology of Warfare: A Sociological View of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2010), (with Nissim Otmazgin) The State and Popular Culture in East Asia (2012) and (with Jessica Glicken Turnley and Kobi Michael) Social Science and Special Operations Forces (2017).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Rethinking Civil-Military Connections: From Relations to Entanglements
Birgitte Refslund Sørensen and Eyal Ben-Ari

Chapter 1. The Invisible Uniform: Civil-Military Entanglements in the Everyday Life of Danish Soldiers’ Families
Birgitte Refslund Sørensen and Maj Hedegaard Heiselberg

Chapter 2. Capable Patriots: Narratives of Estonian Women Living with Military Service Members
Tiia-Triin Truusa and Kairi Kasearu

Chapter 3. Military, Society, and Violence through Popular Culture: Japan's Self-Defense Forces
Eyal Ben-Ari

Chapter 4. From Obligatory to Optional: Thirty Years of Civil-Military Entanglements in Norway
Elin Gustavsen and Torunn Laugen Haaland

Chapter 5. Framing the Other in Times of War and Terror: Explorations of the Military in Germany
Maren Tomforde

Chapter 6. Domesticating Civil-Military Entanglement: Multiplicity and Transnationality of Retired British Gurkhas’ Citizenship Negotiation
Taeko Uesugi

Chapter 7. Civil-Military Relations from International Conflict Zones to the United States: Notes on Mutual Discontents and Disruptive Logics
Robert A. Rubinstein and Corri Zoli

Chapter 8. The Entangled Soldier: On the Messiness of War/Law/Morality
Thomas Randrup Pedersen

Chapter 9. Mobility through Self-Defined Expertise: Israeli Security from the Occupation to Kenya
Erella Grassiani

Chapter 10. Explaining Efficiency, Seeking Recognition: Experiences of Argentine Peacekeepers in Haiti
Sabina Frederic

Chapter 11. Crossing over Barbed-Wire Entanglements of U.S. Military Bases: On Environmental Issues around MCAS Futenma in Okinawa, Japan
Masakazu Tanaka

Chapter 12. The Entanglements of Military Research at Home and Abroad: An Experience of an Israeli Anthropologist
Nir Gazit

Afterword: Three Interpretations of Civil-Military Entanglements
Birgitte Refslund Sørensen and Eyal Ben-Ari

Index

Editorial Reviews

“Bringing the concept of entanglement to bear on CMR is original, relevant as well as timely in the present circumstances (not to mention that it is a fine edition in terms of form to boot)... Civil-Military Entanglements is a good and important book, signalling a new departure for the anthropology of the military. And the new paradigm it outlines, well-adjusted to the circumstances still (but for how long?) prevailing today, is undoubtedly of interest as an addition to the existing literature.” • Res Militaris

“This is an important and most welcome addition to our knowledge of how militaries work and are experienced around the world. Sørensen and Ben-Ari have done a wonderful job of putting together a volume that greatly expands our knowledge and understanding of militarization and civil-military connections around the world”. • Andrew Bickford, Georgetown University

From the Publisher