Military spouses in contemporary Estonia: meaning making in the stories of the wives and partners of active servicemen

ABSTRACT

The article concentrates on understanding military spouses in contemporary Estonia. Theoretical considerations involve military culture and the storied world. We discuss the dominant and contesting narratives that emerged from 14 interviews concerning patriotism, self-sustainability, freedom of choice and identity as military spouses. The dominant narratives demonstrate a strong adherence to military values though overtly the women identified more with the civilian world. The contesting narratives suggest adverse implications for family well-being.

To conclude, Estonia needs a public discussion concerning families of military service members who find themselves on the cusp of two worlds, the civilian and the military. The ambiguous self-positioning of military spouses between the military and civilian worlds needs acknowledgement and further conceptualization.

KEYWORDS:

• Military culture
• storied world
• antenarrative
• military spouse

Acknowledgments

This research received funding from the Ministry of Defense of Estonia through a grant to the University of Tartu and the Estonian Institute of Health Development: “Human resource – related sustainability of the Estonian Defense Forces,” Grant number SSHUH13067, SSVUH18330.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Active service is a specific type of civil service where a person liable for national defense obligation is employed in a position of military rank. A person in active service is an active serviceman (“Military Service Act – Riigi Teataja 2012)

2. Relatively small countries that use conscription and reserve-based armies, such as, for example, Estonia, Norway, or Finland, do not necessarily use the concepts of military family or military spouse. At a NORDEFCO conference 26–27 September 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden Elin Gustavsen presented on Norwegian military spouses. She later published her results in Ethos: ‘The Privatized Meaning of Wartime Deployments: Examining the Narratives of Norwegian Military Spouses’ (Gustavsen 2017). Although she uses the term ‘military spouse’ in English, the social construct of a military spouse does not exist in other countries the same way that these concepts are understood in the US and the UK. A similar discussion took place at the Military Sociological Seminar on 8 March 2017 in Tuusula, Finland, where Anita Hannola presented findings from a survey conducted among Finnish military service personnel and their spouses. The issue of the concept is as of yet unresolved and in English language articles the term ‘military spouse’ is still used. There are obvious drawbacks with using the term, anyone familiar with content of the term in academic writing will assume that the term carries with it certain societal and cultural connotations. In the chapter for ‘Rethinking civil-military relations: Anthropological Perspectives,’ Berghahn (Refslund Sørensen and Ben-Ari 2019) resolved to use ‘wives and partners of professional military service members.’ Regardless, for the ease of reading in this article, we have used the term military spouse to denote a dyadic relationship between a professional military service member and the partner with whom they share their life.

3. Social work in the military is fairly new in Estonia. In 2007 the Peacekeeping Operations Center began developing a comprehensive system to tackle the issues connected to military deployments of long-term assignments abroad (Truusa 2010). The first two social workers were employed in 2008, and in 2012 Estonia adopted its first veterans’ policy that outlined and framed a stronger support system for soldiers during the deployment cycle and also benefits and support in case of injury or death. At the moment the EDF employs six social workers, with a varied client base, ranging from conscripts and active servicemen to veterans and their families (Lauri 2016).

4. The students that participated on the qualitative methodology course were Eliise Salla, Elin Kütt, Felika Tuul, Greten Sööl, Johanna Toplaan, Maarika Masikas, Margit Metsmägin, Marje Reimund, Triin Mäger, Katri Mandel, Mariliis Raidma, Helen Hein, Liis-Marii Mandel, Anne Lilenthal, Gvido Kubulnieks, Helina Paat, Otto Fomotškin, Martin Parts, Kristjan-Jaan Kosk, Johanna Hollo, Riina Järve-Tammiste, Anna-Kristiina Iher, and Kadri Plato, supervised by associate professor (third author).

5. In case of written interviews, the interviewees did not sign a written consent form, but they were provided with the introduction of the study and information on how their data would be used and also a point of contact should they have questions or wish to revoke the consent. In case of oral interviews, the same procedure was followed, but their consent was recorded on audio tape.

6. Due to free movement of labor within the European Union, a number of builders move to Finland, Norway, or other European countries for the construction season, usually from early spring to late fall.

7. The Scouts battalion is a professional expeditionary unit in the first Infantry Brigade of the EDF and those serving in this battalion join because the unit deploys on a regular basis. In this regard the Scouts battalion is the exception in the EDF system.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Republic of Estonia Ministry of Defence [SSHUH13067, SSVUH13067 “Human resources - related suistainability of the Estonian Defence Forces“].

Notes on contributors

Tiia-Triin Truusa

Tiia-Triin Truusa is a sociology PhD student at the University of Tartu and also a project manager at the Center of Excellence for Strategic Sustainability at the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Tartu. She is also Manager of Academic and Outreach Activities, at the Baltic Defence College. Her research topics include veterans’ and conscripts’ issues. She is currently the President of the European Research Group on Military and Society (ERGOMAS).

Kairi Kasearu is the head of the Center of Excellence for Strategic Sustainability at the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Tartu and aProfessor of Empirical Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her research interests include social problems and welfare, national insurance, family policy, and labor market participation.

Judit Strömpl is an Associate Professor in Social Work Research at the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Tartu. Her fields of research include social constructionism, qualitative research methods, social work research, children and young people, violence, and other sensitive topics.