Cecilia Ase - Gendering Military Sacrifice: A Feminist Comparative Analysis

Gendering Military Sacrifice provides rigorous and analytically rich insights into all the work that goes into making the death of soldiers politically intelligible and meaningful. Deftly weaving together practices of meaning making around military sacrifice, this volume has much to tell readers about the specific narratives and practices deployed in different European countries and how military sacrifice can be read as an increasingly globalised phenomenon.

Victoria Basham, Cardiff University, UK

This exciting volume offers original research regarding the meaning assigned to war deaths. The comparative analysis brings forth silences and absences within and across national divides in ways hardly ever done before, and opens windows to new understandings of contemporary war-making. For those among us looking for alternative voices in these times of war and threats of war, this book is an inspiration.

Berit von der Lippe, Norwegian Business School, Norway

Cecilia se, Maria Wendt and their smart co-authors have pulled back the curtain on the costs of the long Afghanistan war. They shine a feminist spot-light on the gendered rituals governments craft to justify their failed militarized policies.

Cynthia Enloe, author ofThe Big Push: Exposing
and Challenging Persistent Patriarchy

There are studies on the military as a gendered institution, and there are studies on how societies commemorate their dead soldiers. This volume combines these perspectives in an original and very stimulating way. In analysing how ISAF casualties were commemorated and legitimated, the authors develop a concise and critical assessment of contemporary wars and national constructions of heroes, victims and sacrifices.

Nina Leonhard, Bundeswehr Center of Military History
and Social Sciences, Germany

This book offers a feminist analysis of military sacrifice and reveals the importance of a gender perspective in understanding the idea of honourable death.

In present-day security discourses, traditional masculinised obligations to die for the homeland and its women and children are challenged and renegotiated. Working from a critical feminist perspective, this book examines the political and societal justifications for sacrifice in wars motivated by human rights and an international responsibility to protect. With original empirical research from six European countries, the volume demonstrates how gendered and nationalistic representations saturate contemporary notions of sacrifice and legitimate military violence. A key argument is that a gender perspective is necessary in order to understand, and to oppose, the idea of the honourable military death. Bringing together a wide range of materials including public debates, rituals, monuments and artwork to analyse the justifications for soldiers deaths in the Afghanistan war (20012014), the analysis challenges methodological nationalism. The authors develop a feminist comparative methodology and engage in cross-country and transdisciplinary analysis. This innovative approach generates new understandings of the ways in which both the idealisation and the political contestation of military violence depend on gendered national narratives.

This book will be of much interest to students of gender studies, critical military studies, security studies and International Relations.

Cecilia se is Professor of Gender Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden.

Maria Wendt is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Stockholm University, Sweden.

Routledge Studies in Gender and Security
Series Editors: Laura Sjoberg
University of Florida
and
Caron E. Gentry
University of St. Andrews

This series looks to publish books at the intersection of gender studies, International Relations, and Security Studies. It will publish a broad sampling of work in gender and security from private military companies to world wars, from food insecurity to battlefield tactics, from large-n to deconstructive, and across different areas of the world. In addition to seeking a diverse sampling of substantive work in gender and security, the series seeks a diverse author pool looking for cutting-edge junior scholars alongside more established authors, and authors from a wide variety of locations and across a spectrum of backgrounds.

Gender and the Genocide in Rwanda
Women as Rescuers and Perpetrators
Sara E. Brown

Gendering Military Sacrifice
A Feminist Comparative Analysis
Edited by Cecilia se and Maria Wendt

A Feminist Comparative Analysis

First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 selection and editorial matter, Cecilia se and Maria Wendt; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Cecilia se and Maria Wendt to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Catalogingin-Publication Data
Names: se, Cecilia, editor. | Wendt, Maria, editor.
Title: Gendering military sacrifice: a feminist comparative analysis / Edited by Cecilia se and Maria Wendt.
Description: First edition. | London; New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in gender and security | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018051707 (print) | LCCN 2018052504 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429826702 (Web PDF) | ISBN 9780429826689 (ePub) | ISBN 9780429826689 (Mobi) | ISBN 9781138329850 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429448102 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: War and society. | DeathSocial aspects. | Feminist theory.
Classification: LCC HM554 (ebook) | LCC HM554.G46 2019 (print) | DDC303.6/6dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051707

ISBN: 978-1-138-32985-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44810-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Cecilia se is Professor of Gender Studies at Stockholm University. She has published several books on gender and nationalism, and on feminist theory. Her work on gendered protection and crisis narratives also appears in International Feminist Journal of Politics and Journal of Cold War Studies.

Redi Koobak is Assistant Professor at the Department of Thematic Studies Gender Studies, Linkping University, Sweden. Her research interests include feminist visual culture studies and art; gender, war and nationalism; post socialist feminisms; and creative writing methodologies. Her work has been published in