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Theorizing Military Masculinities and National Identities: The Norwegian Experience

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military

Abstract

Norway has based its security on aid from great military powers, and is therefore a useful site for examining the idea of complicit masculinities: a position that benefits from the current social order, and thus complying with dominant group interests and hegemonic ideals. This chapter illustrates how such a position led Norway to take an active part in Western interventionism, resulting in a military transformation that challenged national identity, the traditional hegemonic masculinity ideal and the established gender order. This caused a struggle over military identity. By examining this identity struggle the chapter contributes to the broader debates of masculinities, how they work, how they are linked to hierarchical social structures, and how military masculinity is challenged by women’s bodies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea, Svalbard and North Norway.

  2. 2.

    Bildung refers to nineteenth-century German bildung-theory which influenced Norwegian nation-building. It is a pedagogical concept that encourages the individual to engage in a process of self-development. Bildung is however related to the German word image (bild) and connects back to an aspiration to auf-bild (portray) the image of Christ. Some bildung-theorists emphasized that the state had to direct its members to develop their potential into a desired ideal character. So individual self-development can become uniforming and controlled by the state, and this political usage of bildung went beyond individual development to the development of a people (Volk) (Siljander et al. 2012).

  3. 3.

    Groups of saboteurs named ‘Gutta på skauen’ (the lads in the forest) and in particular the heavy-water saboteurs from the Telemark county were hailed as the new heroes of the nation. The saboteurs ‘survived the winter of 1942/3 on the mountain plateau of Hardangervidda living on moss, lichen and a reindeer, after a failed military operation, until finally succeeding in their operation and escaping to Sweden on skis’ (Rones 2015b: 66, see the British film Heroes of Telemark).

  4. 4.

    For instance, it was argued that the Alta Battalion who fought the Germans for two months in the mountain terrain surrounding Narvik were not exposed to a greater strain than the northern people were ‘expected to endure’ (Inst. S. nr. 22 (1994–1995)).

  5. 5.

    This self-image originates from the peaceful secession from Sweden and the national hero Fridtjof Nansens’ humanitarian efforts.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Kjeller, Norway

    Nina Rones

  2. Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway

    Kari Fasting

Authors
  1. Nina Rones
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  2. Kari Fasting
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Correspondence to Nina Rones .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, Politics & Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Rachel Woodward

  2. Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Claire Duncanson

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Rones, N., Fasting, K. (2017). Theorizing Military Masculinities and National Identities: The Norwegian Experience. In: Woodward, R., Duncanson, C. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51677-0_9

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