Gendering the new hero narratives: Military death in Denmark and Sweden

Abstract

During the 20th century, wars were fought primarily in the name of protecting the homeland. Making the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ was a national masculine duty and a key feature of military heroism. Today, human rights and international values justify war-making and legitimise military action. In one of these post-national wars, the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan, more than 700 European soldiers have lost their lives. How have these deaths been legitimised, and how has the new security discourse affected notions of masculinised heroism and sacrifice? This article investigates how the dimensions of national/international and masculinity/femininity are negotiated in media narratives of heroism and sacrifice in Denmark and Sweden. Regarding scholarly discussions on the professionalisation, individualisation and domestication of military heroism, the empirical analysis demonstrates that the Danish/Swedish nation remains posited as the core context for military heroism and sacrifice. In the media narratives, professionalism is represented as an expression of specific national qualities. The media narratives conflate nation and family and represent military heroes as distinctively masculine and national figures. It is argued that a family trope has become vital in present-day hero narratives. This trope is disposed towards collective emotions, national loyalty and conservative gender ideals.

Inventing the Swedish (War) Veteran

“…Whilst others have described the mobilization of past wars, war victories, and/or gendered hero and rescue narratives as important for the production, recognition, and remembrance of veterans (Basham 2016a;Tidy 2015;Refslund Sørensen 2017;Åse and Wendt 2018), this paper has shed light on a context in which wars and military missions seemingly play a marginal and/or silent role in the official promotion of 'the veteran'. In the Swedish context, this subject position is instead, above all, produced and rendered desirable by its constitution as a neoliberal, enterprising, and responsible individual.…”

“…The ways in which veteran identities are rendered desirable through the market have, with few exceptions (Basham 2016b; Bulmer and Eichler 2017), so far received limited attention in the literature, which largely explores other logics, such as gendered hero, protection, and rescue narratives (cf. Young 2003;Pin Fat and Stern 2005;Kronsell 2012;Dyvik 2014;Åse and Wendt 2018). Without in any way questioning the relevance of such perspectives, this paper shows how attending to the workings of neoliberal rationalities and techniques also provides a useful tool with which to put political constructions of veteran identity under critical scrutiny.…”

“…While governmental efforts to control and celebrate veteran identities, bodies and experiences certainly are familiar to many (critical) military scholars (Achter 2010;Ben-Ari 2005;Basham 2016aBasham , 2016bBulmer and Eichler 2017;Danilova 2015;King 2010), this is a novel storyline in the context of Sweden. The Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) has been described as a marginal and even distrusted institution of Swedish society (Berndtsson, Dandeker, and Ydén 2015), which often is attributed to Sweden's non-military participation in World War I and World War II and its identity as a formerly neutral, and still militarily non-aligned, 'peacekeeping state' (Agius 2011;Berndtsson, Dandeker, and Ydén 2015;Leander 2004;Åse and Wendt 2018). Reflecting the marginal role of the SAF in society, Swedish soldiers have until recently been rather absent from the public domainand rarely celebrated.…”

The social construction of police heroes

“…The empirical study by Rankin and Eagly (2008) shows that this definition corresponds with the meaning that many people give to this concept in everyday life. According to Åse and Wendt (2018), cultural imagination often associates heroism with great individual accomplishments and sacrifices for values that are considered to be morally superior.…”

Seeking Recognition, Becoming Citizens

“…Among those interviewed, the female combatants seem to struggle more with competing identities, as well as the lack of recognition among their own ranks. Th is is no surprise, as the veteran identity typically is entrenched in masculinity, and while gender roles can be transgressed during war, aft erward they oft en reassert themselves (see, e.g., Åse and Wendt 2018;Eichler 2014: 603;Eriksson Baaz and Utas 2012;Karner 1996;Kestnbaum 2009: 248;Moran 2010). Th is is to say not that the gendered social practices across all three groups were identical but rather that this fault line was clearly accentuated in all three.…”