Qualitative Methods in Military Studies

Research Experiences and Challenges

Helena Carreiras, Celso Castro, Helena Carreiras, Celso Castro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136228568
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Amérique latine et des Caraïbes

This book examines the methodology of qualitative research in military studies.

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of studies on military and society has grown substantially in substance, size and impact. However, only a tiny part of this bibliography deals in depth with the research methods used, especially in relation to qualitative methods. The data that form the basis of the researchers' analyses are often presented as if they were immediately available, rather than as a product of interaction between the researcher and those who participated in the research.

Comprising essays by international scholars, the volume discusses the methodological questions raised by the use of qualitative research methodology in military settings. On the one hand, it focuses on the specificity of the military as a social context for research: the authors single out and discuss the particular field effects produced by institutional arrangements, norms and practices of the military. On the other, the authors proceed in an empirical manner: all methodological questions are addressed with regard to concrete situations of field research.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, research methods, sociology, anthropology, war and conflict studies and security studies in general.

1	Anthropological methods and the study of the military The Brazilian experience^1 Celso Castro

There are still very few anthropological studies on the military institution. Among the authors or books considered classics of the discipline, present on the syllabus of the mandatory courses, none of them approach the professional military as a subject of investigation. Only in the last decades have anthropologists begun, although in small numbers, to study the military.

In Brazil, during the past two decades, about ten researchers have done fieldwork in the Armed Forces using participating observation, a classical method of ethnographic research since its relevance was established in the beginning of the twentieth century by “founding-fathers” of modern anthropology such as Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski. This chapter is based on personal accounts made by these researchers (assembled in the book “Antropologia dos militares” [Anthropology of the Military], Castro and Leirner [2009]) and focuses on some of the central issues of their experiences: the researcher’s entry in the field; patterns of interaction with the “natives”; the way hierarchy and discipline – two pillars of the military institution – affect the course of the research; gender-related dynamics; and issues related to the publishing of the researcher’s results.

This research was conducted in the last two decades, a period of renewed interest in the comprehension of the “military world” in Brazil. Before this, the majority of the work produced in the fields of Social Science and History focused on military interventions in politics (especially through insurrectional movements or coups d’état) or on the transition from the 21-year-long military regime the country lived under between 1964 and 1985 (with emphasis on the analysis of the military subordination to civil power).

The reason for the pre-eminence of the approaches centred on the political dimension is easily explained. Since the establishment of the Republic in Brazil by a military coup in 1889, the military was, throughout a century, a fundamental actor in Brazilian history, promoting several other coups and interventions, although power was quickly restored to the civilians. The exception to this pattern was the direct exercise of political power between 1964 and 1985, when Brazil was successively governed by five general-presidents. Beginning in 1985, with the transition to a civil government, the process of re-democratization and the birth of the “New Republic,” the military gradually lost political importance in Brazil. It is important to point out that, in the last quarter of the century, it never posed a significant threat to democracy. The experience of the military regime, however, left marks on Brazilian society, including upon the intellectuals, who were strongly affected by authoritarian acts.²

The anthropological approach of the Brazilian military began after the end of the military regime and recognizes the importance of the work produced, for the most part, by political scientists in the 1970s and 1980s.³ It gives, however, centrality to new research themes: daily life in the casern; the process of professional socialization; the construction of military identity; family life in military communities and buildings; and the relationship between the military and their ethnographers. As such, it seeks to contribute to a denser perception of the military world, generating a better understanding of life in the barracks, as well as to broaden the issues faced by anthropology in the study of a central state institution in our own society.

Two worlds: the military and the civilians

I was a pioneer in the anthropological study of the Brazilian military in conducting fieldwork at the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras (AMAN) between 1987 and 1988 and defending, in 1989, my master’s thesis entitled “O Espírito Militar” (The Military Spirit), published as a book in 1990. The AMAN is the only undergraduate school that trains career officers of the Brazilian Army, through a four-year course under a boarding school regime. The focus of my research was the process of construction of the military identity, as experienced by the cadets of the AMAN throughout their professional socialization. I sought to overcome an “external” view regarding the military, which is inclined to contemplate them through an exotic and ethnocentric point of view, and to obtain an “internal” view of their social world, so as to understand how military identity is constructed and how its world view is structured.

It is important to stress that the use of the words “internal” and “external” does not refer to any supposedly reductionist view on my part, an approach that would “isolate” the military institution from the society of which it is a part. On the contrary, it is the main result of the effort to understand fundamental “native categories” of the military, based on symbolic distinctions produced by the military between “inside/outside” and “military world/environment” (mundo/meio militar) versus “civil world/ environment” (mundo/meio civil). These categories are not descriptive terms: they are structural to the military world view. To join the Armed Forces means, above all, not to be a civilian. A point of consensus among the researchers assembled in this book is the perception that the opposition between civilians and the military is integral to the military identity. One pole of this relation – the military – is hierarchically superior in terms of values to the other, the civilian – or paisano, as they say among themselves. This superiority doesn’t have an individual origin, but a collective one. The military feel like they are part of a military “world” or “environment” that is superior to the civilian “world” or “environment” – the world of the paisanos: they represent themselves as more organized, more honest and more patriotic.

It is important to emphasize that these categories are updated in interactions that are not a-historical. That is, they are inserted into a “field of possibilities” that is historically and culturally marked and that modifies with time, although more slowly if compared to other institutions. It should be noted that the very result of the research that civil investigators conduct on the institution can influence these interactions. What is most important, in the theoretical plane, is not to lose sight of the fact that categories like “civilian” and “military” pertain to a logic that is simultaneously situational (that becomes effective in specific contexts, in which these categories “come into action” and can be reaffirmed, questioned, modified or transformed) and relational (they only exist in opposition to other categories – such as “civilians,” “enemies,” etc.)

The contrasting and permanently reaffirmed relation between “in here” and “out there,” with due perception of their differences, is the fundamental aspect of the process of social construction of the military identity to which the cadets of the AMAN are submitted. The initial period, in particular, deceivingly called “adaptation,” is full of examples of a sudden and sharp symbolic rupture with the exterior world. Since the very first moment, mechanisms that Ervin Goffman (1961) called “mortification of the ego” are put into action, which remove the individual’s previous “identity kit.”

The entry into the “military family” – a recurrent theme throughout our book – is obtained by the cadets through a process of professional socialization under a boarding school regime, with few and rigidly controlled hours of leave. This reduces the weight and intensity of their family bonds – the feeling of longing for their family of origin is an important part of the professional socialization to which the cadets are submitted. That is, the “secondary socialization” that they undergo in the Military Academy acquires an extreme form of alternation (Berger and Luckmann) that marks the entrance into a new family – the “military family,” a process that attempts to recreate the emotional weight experienced during primary socialization. When entering the military academy, the youngster undergoes a process of construction of military identity that presupposes and requires the deconstruction of his previous “civilian” identity and the construction of a military “self.” Even when he transits through the so-called “civil world,” the military does not cease to be a military – at most, he can dress in civilian clothes.

Throughout the military career, there is also a great concentration of interaction inside the same “social circle,” to use one of Georg Simmel’s images. Due to this, the “military world” becomes more differentiated, while the individuality of its members becomes more undifferentiated. In military life, in addition to the workplace, the place of residence, leisure and schooling is also shared, in great measure. This characteristic is extended to spouses and sons, embracing the whole “military family.” The endogenous social interaction is formally stimulated, through co-fraternization events organized by the institution, as well as informally, through social encounters organized by military colleagues. The role of the wives (and to a certain extent, the sons) is fundamental. An informal, yet obvious, reproduction of the husbands’ hierarchy takes place among the military wives.

It is important, however, to denaturalize our own conception that there are in fact “civilians” or a “civilian world/environment” – a common taken-for-granted view not only among the military, but also among many researchers who study the so-called “Civil–Military Relations.” The civilian is a military invention. I am only a civilian in relation to the military and when I am classified by them as such. If I had to make a list of the main elements that define my identity, “civilian” wouldn’t appear among them. For any military, however, being a military appears among the first attributes, if not the very first. This is due to the fact that they are part of an institution that I prefer to call “totalizing,” to distinguish from Goffman’s idea of “total institution,” many times applied to the military world (inadequately, in my opinion).⁴ By making this change in terminology – from “total” to “totalizing” – my intention is to better characterize the basic and totalizing experience towards the military identity that embodies and establishes the differential characteristics between military and paisanos: the pre-eminence of collectivity over individuals. The result is the representation of the military career as a “total career” in a coherent world, full of meaning and where people “have bonds” among themselves.

Perhaps a differential characteristic of the anthropologist who makes use of participating observation in a military institution in relation to colleagues of other disciplines that do not make use of this research method is precisely the personal experience of feeling like a civilian, or in the depreciative native version, feeling like a paisano – something that is not usually part of our social identity. Not only does it constitute an intellectual experience, but also an existential one, in the widest sense. It involves, for example, the perception of a different corporality – something fundamental to the military.

Towards an anthropology of the military

As I said, Antropologia dos militares shows the result of ten research projects that applied, in different degrees, the method of fieldwork with participating observation to study the military institution. The majority of these authors participate in the same academic network, with shared experiences and references to a common bibliography. Not all of them, however, identify themselves professionally as anthropologists. Some are sociologists, political scientists or historians. Nevertheless, all of them had, to a lesser or greater degree, their research experiences marked by the anthropological production that is available, either by academic or personal relationships with anthropologists who have researched the topic. Above all, at some moment, they all went to the field and lived with the military “in the flesh,” observing or participating in their daily activities, and not just resorting to archival data and interviews. Besides reading documents and texts and listening to military personnel interviews, they also had the opportunity to observe aspects of the military everyday life in action.

It’s important to point out some limits of the research assembled in the book. There is a much larger concentration of studies on officers than on soldiers and recruits performing mandatory military service; more studies on the Army than on the Navy and the Air Force; on specific moments of the military career rather than on its full course, from the initial training until retirement. In addition to this, there are still few comparative studies between different generations of military and with the experience of other countries – with the exception, in this case, of the chapter written by Máximo Badaró, which presents his research on the Argentinean military.

I am not sure to what extent this collective experience can be extended to other countries. The military institution undoubtedly possesses a high degree of cosmopolitanism, through which military from different countries share many elements that are common to their profession. On the other hand, there is also the undoubted influence of different national realities. Thus, I hope that the general observations that follow may, if not help to elucidate the issues experienced by researchers in other countries, serve as comparative material.

I will attempt to summarize and condense a collective research experience, although I risk misinterpreting or not emphasizing differences in the experiences of each author or, especially, giving more centrality to my own experience. However, I believe that the topics I will present are recognized by all, to a lesser or greater degree, as constitutive of their individual research experience.

Fieldwork in the “military family”

Nearly all of the researchers assembled in the book had little or no contact with the military institution prior to conducting their research. The only exception is my personal “son of a military officer” condition. My father was an Army officer, and because of this I frequently lived, throughout my childhood and adolescence, in military communities and buildings and studied in military schools for two years. This condition imposed itself on me as a necessary exercise of anthropological self-reflection.

During the research at the military academy, a conscious strategy used both by the military and myself, in order to reduce the symbolic distance between us, was to always mark my belonging to the military family. The “military family,” more than a biological bond, is an extremely important native category and reflects some fundamental values of the military world. The family is seen as an extension of the barracks, which, at the same time, is also reached by the family. To a considerable degree, the hierarchical position of the military person extends to his family in interactions with other military families. The apparently informal sociability, during parties, for example, separates the “cliques” by hierarchical circles – but also by gender. One exception refers to the military women, a situation that is still relatively new in the Brazilian Army.

In the case of my research, I had already indicated my “military son” condition in the letter I wrote requesting authorization to research at the AMAN. The military always conveyed the information that I was the “son of a comrade” (filho de um companheiro nosso). In addition, we also accentuated the fact that I had studied in military schools. The condition of being the “son of one of our comrades” turned me into a potential “friend” of the Army. That was significant. A common experience for the researchers assembled in the book is the fact that they were always subject to being classified as “friends” or “enemies” by the military, which was fundamental for the success (or failure) of their research. Even if political or ideological divergences presented themselves, it was necessary to create some level of “trust.” Perhaps this is a consequence (and a requirement) of the ideal “combat” situation – structural to the military cosmology – in which there cannot be any doubt regarding the classification of the person with whom one...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Qualitative Methods in Military Studies
• Cass Military Studies
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Celso Castro and Helena Carreiras
• 1. Anthropological Methods and the Study of the Military: The Brazilian Experience: Celso Castro
• 2. Insider Anthropology: Theoretical and Empirical Issues for the Researcher: Charles Kirke
• 3. Studying Cross-Cultural Competence in the Military: Methodological Considerations of Applied Contract Research for the German Armed Forces: Phil C. Langer and Carsten Pietsch
• 4. Evolving Experiences: Auto-Ethnography and Military Sociology – A South African Immersion: Ian Liebenberg
• 5. Side Effects of the Chain of Command on Anthropological Research: The Brazilian Army: Piero C. Leirner
• 6. Negotiating Access to an Argentinean Military Institution in Democratic Times: Difficulties and Challenges: Alejandra Navarro
• 7. Research Relations in Military Settings: How Does Gender Matter?: Helena Carreiras and Ana Alexandre
• 8. Inside the Military Organization: Experience of Researching the Slovenian Armed Forces: Janja Vuga and Jelena Juvan
• 9. Studying the Military in a Comparative Perspective: Methodological Challenges and Issues – The Example of French and German Officers in European Security and Defence Policy: Delphine Deschaux-Beaume
• 10. Interviewing a Group: A Social Dramatic Art – A Few Remarks on Dynamics and Stakes of Military Groups: SaÏd Haddad
• 11. Research on Latin America’s Soldiers: Generals, Sergeants and Guerrilla Comandantes: Dirk Kruijt
• Concluding Remarks: Celso Castro and Helena Carreiras
• Index