The ‘Self-enterprising Care Taker’ on ‘Home Deployment’: Contesting Constructions of Femininity in Extended Military Family Deployment Support in Sweden
(2017) SIMV18 20171Graduate School
- Abstract
- This study takes a critical feminist anti-militarist perspective on the function and purpose of the support that families of soldiers are provided by militaries during deployment. The context in focus is Swedish deployment support of extended families of soldiers, the material selected is from the website and the forum of the voluntary peer and mentor based support organization Invidzonen. Applying a Critical Discourse Analysis informed by feminist theory, the aim of the study was to identify how military power through deployment support attempts to naturalize and sustain hegemonic gender ideologies, roles and identities and unequal power relations between men and women. This study illustrates the changing and more subtle expression of... (More)
- This study takes a critical feminist anti-militarist perspective on the function and purpose of the support that families of soldiers are provided by militaries during deployment. The context in focus is Swedish deployment support of extended families of soldiers, the material selected is from the website and the forum of the voluntary peer and mentor based support organization Invidzonen. Applying a Critical Discourse Analysis informed by feminist theory, the aim of the study was to identify how military power through deployment support attempts to naturalize and sustain hegemonic gender ideologies, roles and identities and unequal power relations between men and women. This study illustrates the changing and more subtle expression of military power in post-modern society and in Sweden. In social practices of deployment support, between women, the military discourse of ‘home deployment’ has been re-contextualized as valuable experience. The study argues that this has created a discourse of ‘self-enterprising home deployment’. It individualizes and conceals the political and militarized nature of women as a group preforming free or government subsidized care and emotional labour for the SAF. This discourse situates women in contradictory but subordinated positions, with expectations to simultaneously do care and emotional labour and focus on individual development. This normative but contesting notion of femininity within deployment support is termed as the ‘self-enterprising caretaker’. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8910658
- author
- Eklund, Fredrik LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- A Critical Feminist Discouse Analysis of Extended Military Family Deployment Support in Sweden
- course
- SIMV18 20171
- year
- 2017
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Militarization, Sweden, Feminism, Gender, Military Family Deloyment Support
- language
- English
- id
- 8910658
- date added to LUP
- 2017-06-28 11:33:38
- date last changed
- 2017-06-28 11:33:38
@misc{8910658,
abstract = {{This study takes a critical feminist anti-militarist perspective on the function and purpose of the support that families of soldiers are provided by militaries during deployment. The context in focus is Swedish deployment support of extended families of soldiers, the material selected is from the website and the forum of the voluntary peer and mentor based support organization Invidzonen. Applying a Critical Discourse Analysis informed by feminist theory, the aim of the study was to identify how military power through deployment support attempts to naturalize and sustain hegemonic gender ideologies, roles and identities and unequal power relations between men and women. This study illustrates the changing and more subtle expression of military power in post-modern society and in Sweden. In social practices of deployment support, between women, the military discourse of ‘home deployment’ has been re-contextualized as valuable experience. The study argues that this has created a discourse of ‘self-enterprising home deployment’. It individualizes and conceals the political and militarized nature of women as a group preforming free or government subsidized care and emotional labour for the SAF. This discourse situates women in contradictory but subordinated positions, with expectations to simultaneously do care and emotional labour and focus on individual development. This normative but contesting notion of femininity within deployment support is termed as the ‘self-enterprising caretaker’.}},
author = {{Eklund, Fredrik}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The ‘Self-enterprising Care Taker’ on ‘Home Deployment’: Contesting Constructions of Femininity in Extended Military Family Deployment Support in Sweden}},
year = {{2017}},
}