Citation

Wool ZH. Crit. Mil. Stud. 2015; 1(1): 23-37.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/23337486.2014.964600

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper explores the expansive possibilities for a critical military studies that approaches the mechanisms of war-making as coextensive with broader arrangements of social life, rather than as intersecting or overlapping with distinguishable social spheres, like gender. The potential here is both analytical and theoretical: analytical in that it opens up productive avenues of critique through which to explore, but not resolve, the contradictions that animate war-making and military life; theoretical in that war-making and military life offer spaces through which to consider deep questions of social theory-of, for example, the contours of a life worth living in liberal fantasies of the good life-that are amplified in this context, but that resonate well beyond it. In conversation with queer theory, the paper illustrates these possibilities by thinking through the ways that concern about soldier and veteran suicide is imbricated with heteronormative ideals of the family and practices of caregiving in the contemporary US. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Language: en

Keywords

Family; Suicide; Queer theory; Caregiving; US military