The Privatized Meaning of Wartime Deployments: Examining the Narratives of Norwegian Military Spouses

Abstract

This study examines the narratives of eight female spouses of Norwegian veterans of the war in Afghanistan. The narratives are approached as rich cultural texts that arise in the interface between their individual experiences and the sociocultural milieu. The analysis focuses on the use of “normalization” and “agency” as narrative resources used by the women to organize experience and transform it into meaning. In their accounts, the deployment was not framed as a negative and interruptive event. Nor was it connected to a national narrative of collective meaning. Instead, the spouses conveyed a normalized interpretation in which the meaning of their husbands’ deployment was constructed in close reference to the personal realm of family life. This article argues that the experience of contemporary warfare has become a marginalized and unsettled experience in Norwegian society. In the absence of a settled repertoire of cultural scripts to portray the experience of having a spouse deployed abroad, the Norwegian military spouses used a privatized framework to interpret their wartime experience.

“We'll just draw the curtains!”: Military wives’ postures toward predeployment emotional preparation

“…Previous research (e.g., Gustavsen, 2017;Lapp et al, 2010;Sahlstein et al, 2009) highlights military wives' experience of fear and uncertainty leading up to deployment day, which activates their attachment system. By understanding the emotional cycle of deployment (Morse, 2006) and the types of emotional challenges experienced before deployment day, this PEP-CEP framework can further explain how different preparatory approaches may affect the subsequent phases of deployment.…”

“…com, n.d.;Collins et al, 2017). Previous research highlights how spouses experience an increase in distress pre-deployment (Erbes et al, 2012;Gustavsen, 2017;Sahlstein et al, 2009), which can include significantly greater psychological distress than that of their service members (Erbes et al, 2012). The physical separation the couple experiences with deployment is intensely stressful because the communication and safety of the service member and state of the marriage may be uncertain (Borelli et al, 2014;Marnocha, 2012).…”

Making Sense of War Memories: An Analysis of Dutch Veteran Return Trips to Former Yugoslavia

“…Narratives function as the mediator between an individual and the world (Wood 1991, 27; Gustavsen 2017, 515). The narratives of the veterans offer insight into the way veterans articulate their memories and experiences within a specific social and cultural context (Ashplant, Dawson, and Roper 2000, 18; Straub 2010, 222).…”

“…Like Willem, other interviewees emphasized that for them, the urge to return was merely a case of curiosity and nothing else. In this way, they rejected the stereotype of the traumatized veteran and instead focused on their personal interests (Gustavsen 2017). Still, veterans who rely on the term “curiosity” often also mentioned that they felt they had felt alienated after their return to the Netherlands, caused by the impossibility to talk about their deployment at home, a lost sense of comradery, and, among the conscripted soldiers, a loss of their military identity.…”

Shaping hope in everyday life: Experiences of veteran spouses with post‐deployment mental health issues

“…It contributes to a growing body of literature that may enhance the methods for promoting military spousal well‐being. A topic that received insufficient scientific attention (Gustavsen, 2017). Before delving into the results, we describe the military context in the Netherlands, offer a brief conceptualization of hope, and outline the study methodology.…”