The fluidity of the military: a post-structural approach to institutions, power and

bodies

Pamela Moss Studies in Policy & Practice

and Michael J. Prince

Lansdowne Professor of Social PolicyApril 9, 2010

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Our research project SSHRC study on “weary warriors” Psychologically wounded soldiers during combat A triad of discourses: psychiatry, the military,

and masculinity Time frame: 19th century to early 21st century Theoretical entrée: post-structural and feminist Method: documentary-historical Sources: medical and military journals, novels,

autobiographies, diaries, social science literature, hospital records, policy papers, popular movie genre, unpublished theses

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Some of our research questions How do material bodies and bodily

discourses of individual lives constitute the subjectivity of weary warriors?

How is illness taken up by different configurations of power/knowledge over time?

How are distinctions between the well soldier and the ill soldier established and enacted?

How do soldiers find support institutionally within and outside the military as well as collectively as veterans with ill bodies?

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Our focus today

How does a post-structural approach look at the military?

What did Foucault say about the military and soldiers?

What in Foucault’s work is useful for our research project and questions?

What may be problematic in his work for our purposes?

In sum, how might we bring into play Foucault?

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A post-structural approach to military institutions

Moving off an institutional-centric view Questioning the conventional image of

militaries as stable, closed and formal Challenging the concept of soldiers as

docile bodies Looking for fluid identities, practices

and relationships associated with domains of knowledge

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Foucault on militaries

Awesome forces of the sovereign Large destructive mechanisms Precise systems of command Disciplinary institutions A technique and a body of knowledge The intermediary between war and

civil society

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Foucault on soldiers and subjectivity

Militaries invest in bodies, mark them, train and command them

Discipline as composing forces to obtain an efficient machine

Soldiers as “docile bodies” – the object and target of power: manipulated by selection/screening, indoctrination and training, authority practices

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Problems with Foucault

Never saw the military as an apparatus in and of itself with people and processes

Heavy emphasis on official practices and systems of discipline

Bodies produced are static and monolithic Little room for agency or resistance by

soldiers who are docile bodies Distinction between the body and

soul/psyche underdeveloped and not applied to military contexts

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Possibilities with Foucault Foucault also wrote of people as living,

thinking beings (suggestive of soldiers as active, interpretive subjects)

Normalization as a process of creating and applying knowledge organized around certain standards and types (human sciences)

Subjugated knowledge: the silent, the overlooked, below the surface

Consider wider historical processes within which military institutions and practices actually operate

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Fluidity: a post-structural image

1. Lacking definite shape – not the usual image of a military

2. Smooth, nimble, graceful – in a ceremonial and spectacle sense, and in covert and strategic operations

3. Adaptable, flexible – in tension with command and control system, although recognized in part in notion of tactics and contingency plans

4. Unstable, randomness – the unspoken and ignored meaning as it applies to the military: the weary warriors

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Next steps in our project

We plan to explore and examine: Diagnosis as a disciplining process via

categorization of bodily sensations Treatment as the regulation of bodies

by attempting the return to normal Militarization and psychiatrization as

processes that produce soldiers’ bodies as ill

Life after the military

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Thank you

Questions?

Comments?

Suggestions?