Paul Taylor - Military Past, Civilian Present: International Perspectives on Veterans Transition from the Armed Forces

The Springer series International Perspectives on Social Policy, Administration and Practice puts the spotlight on international and comparative studies of social policy, administration, and practice with an up-to-date assessment of their character and development. In particular, the series seeks to examine the underlying assumptions of the practice of helping professions, nonprofit organization and management, and public policy and how processes of both nation-state and globalization are affecting them. The series also includes specific country case studies, with valuable comparative analysis across Asian, African, Latin American, and Western welfare states. The series International Perspectives on Social Policy, Administration and Practice commissions approximately six books per year, focusing on international perspectives on social policy, administration, and practice, especially an East-West connection. It assembles an impressive set of researchers from diverse countries illuminating a rich, deep, and broad understanding of the implications of comparative accounts on international social policy, administration, and practice.

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In the summer of 2015, the editors and a small group of others came together to ask how we might reimagine the veteran. Starting from the premise that how conflict is experienced by those who served requires new forms of thinking and analysis, this interest group suggested that a critical interrogation of veteran affairs is one which engages with war, justice , welfare and rights from the margins. It was a call to take seriously the lived experiences of veterans through the myriad of problems they face with an aim to effect pedagogy and policy . This collection started at that event. Our calls to reimagining the veteran are ongoing. What is presented in this book is however a start. We suggest this subject is approached as less of a series of neat and generalizable explanations; but instead be viewed as aspiring towards a range of critical examinations of the positioning in public discourse and experience of the military veteran. The main aim of this collection is to give the veteran the analytical attention it warrants. Across chapters, and in taking the book as a whole, we aim to begin to chart the landscape around questions such as how veterans transition and homecomings interact with policy. We might further contemplate whether policy evolves out of homecoming or homecoming evolves out of policy and the critical directions that policy is, or is not taking in respect of those transitioning, and those who have transitioned from military service. Importantly, we note Raewyn Connells (2007) astute reminder of the geo-political location of much of this research the global north. We accept that, with the exception of, Taiwo Oluwaseyi Oshigbo and Kehinde Olaoluwatomi Oshigbos chapter in this volume concerning the Nigerian context, this collection is also dominated by perceptions from the global north. This has consequences which we hope that we, or perhaps one of our readers, can address in the fullness of time.

Compiling a text such as this requires an immense amount of support from those around us. There are so many thank-yous, but so few words that are truly adequate. Most of all we want to thank our families and friends for their expert support and their ability to provide sincere encouragement without both this project would never have come forth. To our academic colleagues thank you. We feel fortunate to be among so many great minds who have the ability to counter any insecurity when we wobble on the worth of our own work. And finally, our gratitude goes to the chapter authors inside these covers. Their contributions and engagement with us have made this scholarly undertaking a hugely pleasurable way to spend time and energy.