My aim in this article is to analyze a set of gendered power relations played out in two postconflict settings. Based on interviews with peacekeepers and others, I argue that sexual exploitation of local women by male peacekeepers continues to be documented. I then turn to scholarly considerations of peacekeeper sexual exploitation, some of which accord excessive explanatory power to a crude form of military masculinity. This is underlined by similarly exploitative activities perpetrated by humanitarian workers and so-called "sex tourists." In conclusion, I argue that a form of exploitative social masculinities shaped by socioeconomic structure, impunity, and privilege offers a more appropriate way to capture the activities of some male peacekeepers during peacekeeping missions. Finally, in underlining the conflation of military masculinities with exploitation, I pose the question of how to explain those military men who do not exploit local women while deployed on missions.
While a considerable literature has developed exploring the ways in which military socialization is able to transform individuals from "civilian" to "service" persons, work focusing on the longer-term legacy of these experiences, post-discharge in the civilian environment, is relatively underdeveloped and tends to deal exclusively with paid employment. I tentatively suggest in this article that the concepts of gender (masculinity) and the "sociology of the body" can be put to work to illuminate a number of the potentially long-term transformations effected during immersion in the British armed forces. These unifying themes may transcend the (apparent) diversity of circumstances ex-servicemen experience, from "success" in paid civilian employment, to "failure" in the case of homelessness among a number of the ex-forces population. Both outocmes may be marked by their strongly masculinized contexts, together with concomitant demands made on the physical body. I conclude by arguing that the sociology of the military might benefit from developing contemporary theoretical literatures-including more poststructural approachesthat are laregely absent from the more usual organizational focus.
This article examines the politics of identity work in the private security industry. Drawing on memoirs authored by British private military contractors, and using a theoretical framework influenced by symbolic interactionist thought, the article highlights the relevance of intersubjectivity to identity constitution. In particular, British contractors are found to constitute their professional identity in relation to their US military and contractor counterparts, above all by framing them as 'less-competent others'. This article makes an original contribution to the private and military security companies literature through its sociological focus on the links between national and professional self-identities and security practices on the ground. The article also explores the importance of the memoir genre as a valid textual resource which throws light on the interplay of the international and security dimensions within multinational military and militarised contexts.
This article contributes towards ongoing debates on gender, security and post-conflict studies. Its focus is on the activities of male peacekeepers and their gendered relations with women and girls. Against the backdrop of the peacekeeping economies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, we focus on the consequences of male peacekeepers' construction and enactment of masculinity (and masculinities) on the security of local women. We conclude by suggesting that a deeper understanding of gender relations and security in peacekeeping contexts is necessary for any policy intervention in post-conflict settings.
An emerging literature has recently attempted to address the transitory characteristics of the single homeless population. In this paper I contribute to this focus by arguing that one way in v^^hich to account for the high mobility of the insecurely accommodated is to focus on its gendered groundings. Drawing on a study of seventeen homeless ex-servicemen, I explore the long-term influence of militarymasculine gender ideology in a civilian environment pervaded by disadvantage. The themes of the emotions, camaraderie, alcohol use and 'freedom from the military' are discussed within an empirical and theoretical framework. In conclusion, it is suggested that a number of ex-servicemen are both disposed to, and equipped for, a life on the road, and may become 'addicted' to travel and fleeting fixedness to place. It is hoped that these comments have a wider generalisability, and may throw light on the deeper underpinnings of movement for homeless (non ex-service) men, a number of whom may romanticise their lives 'on the open road'.
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