Ghostly warriors: gender, haunting, and military techniques

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Clark, Lindsay Caitlin (2017). Ghostly warriors: gender, haunting, and military techniques. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Contemporary debates about military technologies have tended to overlook important interjections from feminist security scholars. These interjections have drawn attention to the myriad ways in which gender functions in the development and deployment of technologies in warfare, so that the technology is perceived as either having 'feminizing' or 'masculinizing' effects. However, the accounts offered in support of these arguments include data which does not ‘fit’ with the narrative of either/or masculinization/feminization. This thesis is that 'Haunting' provides an important lens through which the interaction between, and co-constitution of, gender and military technologies can be more adequately explored. Supplementing the 'ghost hunt' with 'queer logic' to draw the concerns of Haunting (the complexity of personhood, in/(hyper)visibility, disturbed temporality and power) in conversation with feminist scholarship, the thesis reveal military technologies as simultaneously destabilizing and (re)inscribing dominant discourses of military masculinity. At its core this thesis argues that Haunting as a theoretical framework and methodology gives us access to, and a means of understanding, data that centres nuance, details and specificity which is fundamental to social research.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

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