What Can We Learn from Soldiers’ Narratives? Methodologies and Methods

Abstract

In the previous chapter, I argued that the scepticism about the notion that soldiers can bring about peace is often based on too determinist an analysis, and that there is a need to pay closer attention to the everyday practices of soldiers in order to assess their contribution to peace and security. Before turning to the exploration of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, how they construct their identity, and the implications this has for successful peacebuilding, this chapter discusses issues of method, methodology and theory. The method employed to explore British military masculinities is a feminist discourse analysis of soldiers’ personal narratives. British soldier autobiographies, personal narratives or ‘herographies’ (Ledwidge 2011: 9) have proliferated in recent years. Through them we can gain an insight into the identities of British soldiers – we can trace the way that ideas of gender, race, class and nation inform a soldier’s sense of self. Of course, they are also problematic as sources. How do we know if the soldiers are telling the truth? Authors of autobiographies can overemphasize some things, neglect others and misinterpret relations (Hynes 1998; King 2000; Harrison 2001: 64–66; Smith and Watson 2001; Vernon 2005; Woodward and Winter 2007).