The Affective Dimensions of Militarism in Schools: Methodological, Ethical and Political Implications

ABSTRACT

This article argues that it is important to understand militarism in schools as an affectively felt practice that reproduces particular feelings in youth and the society. The analysis draws on affect theory and especially feminist scholarly work that theorises militarism as affect to consider how militarism is affectively lived in schools. In particular, the article examines the ethical and political implications of affective militarism in schools and suggests an ‘affective methodology’ for exploring militarism’s affective logics in schools. It is also suggested that resisting militarism in schools involves a serious ethico-political dilemma, namely, how to engage with the value of honouring fallen soldiers without inadvertently condoning the moral and political ideology of militarism. In seeking insights into the affective dimensions of militarism in schools, it is crucial to identify the complicated, productive and ambivalent intersections between militarism in schools and broader moral and political economies of military cultures.

Keywords:

• affect/emotion
• militarism
• schools
• ethics
• politics
• affective methodology

1. Introduction

A few years ago, I attended a commemoration event at my daughter’s elementary school. School memorial ceremonies – in this case, a commemoration event for the Greek-Cypriot (EOKA) liberation struggle against British colonialism in 1955–59 that led to the independence of Cyprus – constitute important rituals through which students are socialised into the values and norms of national memory and ethnic belonging (Ben-Amos and Bet-El, 1999; Handelman and Katz, 1990; Lomsky-Feder, 2004, 2011). Part of this particular commemoration event included elements of soldiering, namely, boys in military uniforms and helmets. This was not the first time I had seen elements of militarism in Greek-Cypriot schools, so I whispered to my wife that soldiering at the elementary school level was not only problematic, but also passé. A parent, who happened to overhear me, stood up , visibly upset, and told me, ‘Aren’t you ashamed? I feel proud for my boy to wear a military uniform. Our kids should learn from an early age how to defend our country from the Turks who occupy Cyprus.’

I left the event in shock. I thought I could very well be in the minority of being very sceptical about the intrusion of military values in schools and that many parents might have felt moved and proud by the soldiering scenes at this school commemoration event. It was only after significant reflection and more in-depth research on the topic that I began to understand militarism as an affectively felt logic that enables communities to feel attached to military values (Chisholm and Ketola, 2020; Wegner, 2021). I gradually realised that various manifestations of militarism, especially in conflict-affected societies such as Cyprus, often become such an inextricable part of ‘everyday’ life (de Certeau, 1984) and ‘common sense’ that are rarely questioned (McSorley, 2016). In this sense, schools were not an exception, and yet I wondered whether it was possible to still have the emotional benefits of such events (e.g., solidarity, sense of community) without reproducing militaristic values.

Historically speaking, the militarising school is not a new idea (Gündüz, 2018). As Gündüz explains, compulsory education in Europe since the nineteenth century was ‘tasked with preparing people to perform long periods of compulsory military service’ (p. 266). Hence, schooling and militarism have been very much entangled in the last two centuries (Beier and Tabak, 2020), making schools a crucial social terrain by which societies and citizens adopt militaristic values such as a belief in hierarchy, obedience, and the use of force, if needed (Gündüz, 2018). Recent research in many parts of the world (e.g., see Abajian, 2016; Behr et al., 2018; Kershner and Harding, 2019; Pennell, 2020; Suzuki, 2016) shows the pervasive presence of militarised practices across many educational systems. For instance, national holiday celebrations, school commemoration events, school plays, school excursions to commemoration sites, marches, and anthems are some of the examples that nourish the practice of militarism in schools.

Although literature in this area documents the connections between militarism and schooling in various social and political contexts, there is little attention to how militarism manifests itself through a set of affective practices that evoke particular emotional and ethical relations such as pride and mourning for ‘our’ dead (Wegner, 2021). I argue, therefore, that it is important to understand militarism in schools as an affectively felt practice that reproduces particular feelings in youth and the society. This article, then, draws on affect theory (Åhäll, 2018; Ahmed, 2004/2014; Berlant, 2011; Gregg and Seigworth, 2010; Hutchison, 2016), and especially scholarly work that theorises militarism as affect (see Basham, 2016; Burridge and McSorley, 2013; Chisholm and Ketola, 2020; McSorley, 2016; Rashid, 2020; Rossdale, 2019; Wegner, 2021; Welland, 2021) to consider how militarism is affectively lived in schools. In particular, I examine the ethical and political implications of affective militarism in schools and suggest an ‘affective methodology’ (Knudsen and Stage, 2015) for exploring militarism’s affective logics in schools. Although my analysis is largely theoretical, it also draws on some empirical examples from my long-term ethnographic research on affects/emotions in Greek-Cypriot schools, especially in relation to issues of nationalism, identity, peace, and war (Bekerman and Zembylas, 2012; Zembylas, 2008, 2015; Zembylas et al., 2016; Zembylas and Loukaidis, 2021).

My focus on the affective experiences of militarism in schools shares a common interest about the significance of emotions and affects with a small but growing number of (predominantly feminist) scholars in several disciplines who have begun to theorise militarism not (just) according to its values and ideas (i.e., as cognitive), but as something embodied and felt (Welland, 2021). I join these scholars to argue that challenging militarism in schools requires an understanding of the affective impact of militarism on teachers, students, parents and the society at large. I emphasise, therefore, that attention is needed to consider how militarism’s felt logics are reproduced in the micro-politics of everyday encounters (Steele, 2019) taking place in schools. It is this affective power that renders militarism ‘normal’ (Lutz, 2009) in everyday encounters through commemoration and other rituals in schools, while it simultaneously obscures militarism’s ethical and political implications such as the normalisation of military violence and the legitimation of death and injury produced through war as something honourable and worthwhile to emulate (Wegner, 2021). Ultimately, what is at stake here is not the particularity of affective militarism in a specific school context, but more broadly the ways that militarism’s ‘feltness’ (Welland, 2021) in schools render militaristic school activities as ‘unquestionable.’

The article proceeds as follows. I begin with a discussion of militarism and schooling; this part provides an overview of some research in this area showing the intersections of schooling and militarism. The next part turns to feminist scholarship on affects and emotions to theorise militarism as felt/affect; this part draws on the notion of ‘everyday’ manifestations of militarism to emphasise that emotions and affects are integral to the normalisation and (re)production of militarism in society. In the third part of the essay, I consider two examples from my ethnographic research in schools that show the affective impact of militaristic practices on students and teachers, and explain how my affective methodology – which utilises the notion of ‘affective milieu’ (Schuetze, 2021) – can be used to explore affective relations of militarism in schools. I conclude with a discussion of the ethical and political implications of affective militarism in schools and how educators may begin to challenge the reproduction of militaristic practices in everyday school life.

2. Militarism and Schooling

Militarism and militarisation is understood in this article as a process through which military values and priorities extend into civilian life (Bernazolli and Flint, 2009; Enloe, 2000, 2004, 2007; Woodward, 2004). In other words, militarism is a means by which societies and citizens adopt militaristic values and priorities (e.g., belief in hierarchy, obedience, the use of force) as their own (Enloe, 2007). According to Enloe (2004), one of the leading scholars in this area of research, the core tenets of militarism are the following: war is necessary and purposeful; having enemies is a natural condition; violence is normal; and, the soldier is to be glorified (p. 219). These tenets are spread at various levels of society, including schooling. For example, certain rituals or habits (e.g., eating habits, fitness etc.) in society/schools adopt a specifically militaristic form. Also, school commemoration events or acts of remembrance in public (e.g., the ‘Poppy Day’) are one of the key ways populations, especially children and youth, are socialised into militarised practices and values (Basham, 2016). In particular, points out Basham, the glorification of the soldier in these ceremonies is one of the most powerful mechanisms through which everyday citizens and youth are taught about military values, and specifically the idea of accepting war as a regrettable but necessary sacrifice.

In her extensive research on militarism’s impact on women’s lives, Enloe (2007) shows that militarism creates a whole different ontology that operates as ‘a package of distinct but interdependent values and beliefs about how the world “works” and how the world ought to work’ (p. 54). In this sense, militarism is a distinct way of thinking and feeling about societal problems and their solution through a prism that accepts the use of force and more generally the valorisation of military values (Enloe, 2004; Lutz, 2002). People become militarised, argues Enloe (2004), by adopting militaristic values that see the world as best approached with militaristic attitudes. As Enloe writes, ‘[m]ost of the people in the world who are militarised are not themselves in uniform. Most militarised people are civilians’ (2007, p. 4). Enloe (2004, 2007) suggests that it is crucial for scholars to examine how and why people become militarised in specific social contexts (e.g., schools), especially when this is happening in ways that become less visible or wholly invisible and naturalised.

As Pennell (2020) observes, in recent years ‘increasing attention is being paid to the subtle and indirect forms of militarisation that shape the everyday lives of children within and beyond zones of conflict’ (p. 385, added emphasis). Of particular interest here, the work of Michel de Certeau (1984) offers insights into the importance of everyday practices as significant sites of militarisation in schools. de Certeau’s contribution is understood here in terms of his interest in the ways that everyday practices and social norms are entangled. Militarised practices in schools, in this sense, are simultaneously imposed and taken up, reconfigured by their ‘users’ (teachers and students alike) in ways not necessarily intended by those who produced them in the first place. For de Certeau, the institutional strategies that structure, conceal and maintain the operations of power – in this case, the official as well as the hidden curriculum; cultural norms etc. – are used to habituate the youth into particular social norms. de Certeau argues that ‘consumers’ (his broad terminology) respond with tactics that serve as moments of agency and resistance; in other words, consumers (students and teachers in this case) do not blindly follow norms and habits but adopt them accordingly. This interplay of strategies and tactics plays an important part in refiguring everyday cultural beliefs and practices over time in schools (Saltmarsh, 2015).

In particular, the focus on the ‘everyday’ in the context of militarism (Bashum, 2016; Bernazolli and Flint, 2009; Enloe, 2000) emphasises the idea that militarism circulates through all levels of society, including schooling, in ways that make military values to become normalised. As Beier and Tabak point out,

Intersecting the everyday lives of children the world over, ideas, practices, artefacts of material culture, and the like all may be militarised and, thus, simultaneously (re)productive of militarism. But none of these need be explicitly or even intuitively military in order to be so. What is key is how these things come to be normalised. (2020, p. 284, original emphasis)

In this sense, there are both direct and indirect manifestations of militarism in the everyday life of schools. For example, there is the direct reach of the military and even of overt recruitment efforts into schools in the US (Abajian, 2016; Harding and Kershner, 2015); other aspects of militarisation might be conducted in subtler ways such as the securitisation measures taken at schools in response to the problem of mass shootings, active shooter drills for learning survival tactics, and the very architecture of schools that incorporate features first perfected in the design of frontline trenches of the First World War (Beier and Tabak, 2020). Furthermore, examples of militarism in schools around the world include school excursions to commemoration sites, marches, school plays in which there are elements of soldiering, and anthems (Behr et al., 2018; Kershner and Harding, 2019; Pennell, 2020; Suzuki, 2016). Scholars have also explored the entanglement of militarism and youth in the school curricula, toys, films and video games (Hörschelmann, 2016; Qazi, 2020; Reagan, 1994; Shaw, 2010).

All of these examples show that militarism is part of children’s everyday lives in visible or less visible ways that valorise particular kinds of responses to produce a normalisation of militarisation (Beier and Tabak, 2020). Importantly, as Beier and Tabak point out,

the weight of militarised practices is not borne by any of them alone. Rather, they are woven into a complex social fabric wherein they derive intelligibility and confirmation from related tropes and performatives. An essential complement to valorisation, for instance, is practices of war remembrance that hold out heroic feats or personal sacrifice in ways that invite emulation—or, at least, demand reverence. (p. 285)

The example of the school commemorative event that I narrated at the beginning of this article, and especially the parent’s response to my commentary, shows precisely a crucial implication of glorifying soldiering in schools, namely, to invite emulation from younger generations. In this sense, the society’s indebtedness to the fallen soldiers of a nation, as this is projected through performative acts in school plays and other commemoration events, reiterates the underlying tenets of militarism, making schools sites of militarised pedagogies (Beier and Tabak, 2020).

Understanding the multifacetedness and complexity of these militarised pedagogies and the entanglement between schooling and militarism means paying attention to the everyday manifestations of militarism in schools that may take spectacular, mundane or unanticipated trajectories (Beier and Tabak, 2020; Hörschelmann, 2016). In the aftermath of de Certeau’s (1984) influence, the notion of the ‘everyday’ has gained growing traction in many disciplines, especially in relation to issues of power and politics (Beattie et al., 2019). The traditional concern with ‘high politics,’ explain Beattie et al. (2019), has prevented a more serious consideration of individuals and political issues at the everyday level as irrelevant. However, as Beier and Tabak (2020) point out, ‘militarisation does not just reside in and circulate via the “high politics” of wars’ (p. 286), hence we need a deeper interrogation of how the militarised everyday is featured in children’s and youth’s lives. Contributions by Pennell (2020) and others in a recent special issue of Childhood show that the everyday connections between militarism and childhood ‘are wide-ranging and shape civilian spaces and social relations in ways that may be subtle and inconspicuous’ (Beier and Tabak, 2020, p. 282).

However, while these investigations of the everyday entanglements between militarism and schooling do reveal various aspects of the manifestations of militarised childhoods in different socio-political contexts, one element that has received less attention is the affective dimensions of militarism in schools. As Wegner (2021) argues, militarism is not perpetuated in societies by a series of rational thoughts, but rather it is an embodied and affective practice that is situated in particular structures of feeling (McSorley, 2016). Hence, in seeking to enrich our investigations of the everyday connections between militarism and schooling, it is important to turn our attention to militarism as felt/affect and how this is manifested in schools. In the next part of the essay, I offer a conceptual framing of militarism and affect in schools that seeks to broaden current analytical approaches to studying militarism and schooling through an approach that considers the role of emotions and affects in both reproducing and unsettling militaristic practices and subjectivities, identities, and ideologies (see Wegner, 2021).

3. Militarism as Felt/affect

Over the past decade, there has been growing research on emotions and affects across multiple disciplines – what has become known in the literature as ‘affect studies’ and ‘affect theories’ (Åhäll, 2018; Ahmed, 2004/2014, 2010; Berlant, 2011; Gregg and Seigworth, 2010; Hutchison, 2016). Defining affect and emotion can be tricky, though, as there are multiple theoretical perspectives and positions (Slaby and Muhlhoff, 2019). In this article, emotions are understood as the discursive and conscious manifestation of bodily feelings (Hutchison, 2016) – for example, love, fear, anger, and sadness. Affects are understood as the intensities experienced at an embodied level; in this sense, affects describe the manner in which the body registers its sensory relation to other bodies and the world (Massumi, 2002, 2015). However, this does not mean that affect ‘belongs’ to the body or emotion ‘belongs’ to language; rather, it means that affective relations are already entangled with emotions (Shouse, 2005).

Although some scholars make a ‘hard’ distinction between affects and emotions, I draw on feminist literature (Åhäll, 2018; Ahmed, 2004/2014, 2010; Hemmings, 2005) that views affects, emotions and feelings as mutually interrelated and, therefore, largely inseparable in practice. As Ahmed (2010) explains:

While you can separate an affective response from an emotion that is attributed as such (the bodily sensation from the feeling of being afraid), this does not mean that in practice, or in everyday life, they are separate. In fact, they are contiguous; they slide into each other; they stick, and cohere, even when they are separated. (p. 231)

Hence, I understand emotion and affect as ‘inextricably linked’ (Hutchison, 2016, p. 16); in this sense, emotions involve ‘bodily processes of affecting and being affected’ (Ahmed, 2004/2014, p. 208), whereas affects frame and guide ‘more conscious, cognitive emotional evaluations’ (Hutchison, 2016, p. 16). Therefore, an analysis of affects cannot be done without reference to emotions and vice versa.

Building upon feminist scholarship that calls for the need to study war and violence through the lens of people’s affective experiences (Welland, 2021), there is newfound attention, according to Wegner (2021), to militarism as affect, namely, ‘the ways that militarism is not simply ideas and values, but something that is experienced as a dominant structuring social force with material, ideological, and embodied affects’ (p. 3). In particular, building on the notion of ‘everyday’ manifestations of militarism, scholars who understand militarism as affective consider how particular emotions and affects are integral – that is, how they become ‘ordinary’ in Stewart’s (2007) terminology – to the normalisation and (re)production of militarism (Welland, 2021). As McSorley writes,

Despite the fact that militarism is rarely made sense of in terms of a clearly thought through set of rational principles, a type of militarism does nonetheless “make sense” to many people as something that is simply felt to be instinctively right. (2016, p. 105, emphasis in original)

For McSorley (2016) as well as for Welland (2021), who suggests the term ‘feltness’ as an attempt to convey militarism’s emotions and affects, it is important to understand militarism as an affective experience and practice within particular socio-political and historical settings. This implies that scholarly analysis ‘needs to be attentive to how forms of militarism may be unreflexively assumed, embodied and summonsed through inter-corporeal interactions, structures of feeling and sensory practices’ (McSorley, 2016, p. 105). Conceptualising militarism as affect or as felt, according to Welland (2021), means ‘taking account of physical movements and sensations, circulating emotions, and affective resonances, and thinking about how these fleeting, and oftentimes contradictory, feelings (re)produce, sustain, and sometimes challenge the maintenance of military power’ (p. 64).

Feminist theorising on militarism and affect, then, enables us to study how bodies, as they are culturally, socially and politically situated, come together and become attached to certain military values and ideologies (Chisholm and Ketola, 2020). In particular, Ahmed (Ahmed, 2004/2014, 2010) helps us understand militarism as an affective logic that becomes ‘sticky’ through our affective encounters – observed, for example, in the long-standing state-led ceremonies of commemoration that honour fallen soldiers (Wegner, 2021) or in school commemoration events that teach children about their ancestors’ sacrifices (Zembylas, 2013; Zembylas and Loukaidis, 2021). These affective practices ‘stick’ to individual bodies, becoming a part of everyday sensibilities concerning what constitutes desirable goals or whom to emulate as part of someone’s civic duty (Chisholm and Ketola, 2020).

Importantly, as Chisholm and Ketola (2020) point out, the capacities to ‘affect and be affected’ are not reducible to individual bodies, but formulate what Ahmed (Ahmed, 2004/2014) calls ‘affective communities’ that reinforce the normative acceptance of militarism. Ahmed’s (Ahmed, 2004/2014) notion of ‘circulation’ of affects and emotions allows us to think about the ways in which affective investments in militarism have specific histories and establish norms that guide individuals and communities, especially children and youth, towards what and how to feel about certain events and actors (Chisholm and Ketola, 2020). In this sense, ‘militarist logic does not simply flow from the top-down, but rather circulates between macro- and micro-political levels’ (Wegner, 2021, p. 2). This explains why it is so difficult to challenge militarism, when it becomes normalised in the everyday life of a community.

Therefore, it is important to consider how militarism, which involves complicated articulations of affects and emotions, is mobilised in specific micro-political spaces (Wegner, 2021) such as schools. Affective militarism in micro-political sites is crucial to investigate for two reasons, according to Wegner (2021): first, it reinforces the normative acceptance of militarism in society; second, it distracts from the types of violence that militaries execute, as the normalisation of militarist values in social and cultural spaces insulates militarist practices from critique. However, it also important to remember, emphasises Wegner, that participants in social and cultural practices that reproduce militarism are not passive individuals: ‘sometimes [they are] eager, sometimes ambivalent, sometimes wary, sometimes conflicted, and sometimes unaware’ (2021, p. 2).

Furthermore, understanding militarism as affect enables us to pay attention to the ethical and political consequences of militarism in various sectors of the society (e.g., schools). For example, as noted earlier, school commemoration ceremonies play an important role in teaching young generations about the value of self-sacrifice, urging youth, explicitly or implicitly, to emulate this value. These ceremonies play with affects and emotions, investing in affecting children and youth to feel and express a range of emotions such as grief, sadness, gratitude and admiration (see Archer and Matheson, 2020). In this sense, according to MacLeish (2018), an ethical and political consequence of militarism as affect is the social and affective reproduction of the ‘moral economy of war violence’ (p. 130). As Wegner (2021) also explains,

Discursive and affective rituals of these [commemorative] events cast military deaths as honourable and, in turn, legitimise the contexts in which these individuals died. War, therefore, is bizarrely justified through discourse that positions its logical outcome (the lethal destruction of human life) as worth of reverence. (p. 2)

However, at the same time, it is important to recognize that there is a good deal of nuance and complexity in these commemorations. Especially in light of de Certeau’s insights about resistance and agency, the moral economy of violence is not the only view legitimated by these commemorations. To commemorate and recognise the sacrifice does not necessarily imply the legitimation of war or violence. One can hold the view that soldiers and war should be commemorated and also that war violence is illegitimate.

All in all, then, building on insights from a feminist affective perspective on militarism, this article suggests that what is absent from current theorisations of militarism and schooling is how militarism becomes felt in schools – that is, how the affective elements of militarism are variably sensed by teachers, students, and parents. For example, what affective investments to militarism do school commemoration ceremonies create, binding subjects to particular militarist ideas and identities or even subverting these ideas and identities? I therefore suggest that we need ‘affective methodologies’ (Knudsen and Stage, 2015) to study militarism in schools, namely, methodologies that pay attention to how affects and militarism become entangled in different school settings.

4. Affective Methodologies for the Study of Militarism in Schools

My analysis of militarism in schools in this article uses the concept of affective milieus (Schuetze, 2021) as a methodological tool that enables me to consider ‘the more mundane and day-to-day affect dynamics of social life’ (ibid., p. 1) in schools. Schuetze (2021) maintains that affective milieus call attention to how commonplace affect relations create territories in social life which form and mould individuals all the time. In other words, affective milieus are not physical territories but rather social and emotional formations (e.g., ‘structures of feeling’) that are always present, bringing with them societal, large-scale and historical formations to make our experience of the world possible, meaningful and oriented. A person’s orientation, explains Schuetze, drawing from Ahmed (2004, Ahmed, 2010), determines what is affectively close to them, and what is distant. For example, a racialising perception of the world means that I see bodies as raced because my vision has been habituated to do so; the affective relations configuring this vision have been acculturated to ‘see’ some bodies as being ‘close’ to me and others as ‘distant’ (Schuetze, 2021). ‘This means that affect dynamics,’ writes Schuetze, ‘are fundamental mechanisms of acculturation enforcing particular modes of being’ (p. 6). In general, affective milieus are comprised of both social and material relations that modulate affect and mould subjectivity (Maiese, 2022).

In this section, I focus on two examples of my long-term ethnographic research on affects/emotions in Greek-Cypriot schools, especially in relation to issues of nationalism, identity, peace, and war (Bekerman and Zembylas, 2012; Zembylas, 2008, 2015; Zembylas et al., 2016; Zembylas and Loukaidis, 2021). The aim here is not to offer a detailed analysis of these events but to demonstrate the affective milieus of militarism in schools. The significance of the two examples I consider here – a school excursion to a battlefield of the EOKA liberation struggle against British colonialism; and, a school commemoration ceremony that includes elements of soldiering and military-style marching – is that they show the affective milieus of these events, namely, how individual and collective emotions shape and are shaped by participation in these events enacted in particular sites. It is not my goal to prove that I accurately capture the emotions expressed in these examples, or to suggest that such school commemorative events prompt universalized emotions to all participants (see also Wegner, 2021). Rather, my intention is to consider how affects and emotions are composed together to form affective milieus of militarism in school that help us understand what affects and emotions do ethically and politically when they are entangled with military values.

4.1. Example 1: A School Excursion to a Battlefield

School excursions to battlefields of the EOKA liberation struggle against British colonialism are common educational trips by Greek-Cypriot elementary and secondary schools, involving a visit and sometimes a short ceremony to honour fallen fighters. The battlefield of Gregoris Afxentiou (one of the EOKA leaders) at Machairas is one of the most famous and popular excursions for schools. The excursion usually includes: a walk to the hideout (located opposite Machairas Monastery) in which Gregoris Afxentiou was burned alive by the British after a long battle; and, a visit to the museum dedicated to the fallen fighter. A few years ago, I went along with an elementary school (where I was doing my research) on a visit to this battlefield. The students walked to Afxentiou’s hideout and then gathered outside, along a narrow alley overlooking the mountain, for a short ceremony that included a moment of silence, then a speech by the school principal, some poetry recitation by students, and the national anthem. The ceremony was an example of a ‘typical’ ritual in which particular norms and ideas (the need to honour the hero and his sacrifice; the legitimacy of war as a force of ‘good’ against ‘evil’; the importance of emulating heroes like Gregoris Afxentiou) were promoted (see also, Zembylas, 2013). On our way to the museum, I talked to a sixth-grade student and asked him about the emotions stimulated while being at this place and participating at the ceremony that followed. He said:

I feel awe for Gregoris Afxentiou’s sacrifice. I always admired him. I don’t know how to express my feelings today. […] I am not sure that I am ready to emulate his sacrifice … I mean I can’t imagine being burned alive. I would be very scared. I feel very bad about this.

A teacher who overheard our conversation interjected and said:

Students are often shocked when they visit the hideout and realise how small it is and how much courage and self-sacrifice must have been required to give your life for your country. This is the feeling we want to communicate though, that’s why we bring students to this place. I mean we don’t want them today of course to sacrifice their lives, but who knows in the future?

This story describes that the experience at this event was deeply emotional and produced affective and moral investments to particular ideas and norms (e.g., self-sacrifice for one’s country; feelings of pride for heroes’ sacrifice). This particular student, and possibly others, felt something that could not be easily articulated as a specific emotion, yet this feeling seemed to evoke a sense of how they should act, namely, that there was something expected of them to do (see also, Wegner, 2021). The subtle feeling of shame by the student who admitted that he would be scared to be burned alive and the teacher’s argument that the educational goal of these trips was to communicate certain feelings to students – although it was not clear whether these feelings also included shame – were both emotional practices cultivated through pre-existing norms about appropriate feelings acceptable for events like this. To ‘know’ what was expected constituted a ‘feeling rule’ (Hochschild, 1983) that was part of the affective milieu; within this affective milieu, emotions took on a moral quality while emotion norms were linked to the values that were honoured (Koschut, 2014). To put this in de Certeau’s (1984) terms, the school used institutional strategies to structure the experiences of students – in this case, through organizing a school excursion to a battlefield – yet students responded with tactics that served in ambivalent ways, sometimes confirming and other times resisting the norms carved out for them by the institution. In any case though, the felt-sense articulated by both the student and his teacher reflected how military values made sense as something that was felt, as an element of the affective milieu of militarism in schools. Students and teachers engaged with the emotion norms that were expected of them, even if they could not always articulate them fully into words.

4.2. Example 2: A School Memorial Ceremony

School memorial ceremonies and rituals are prime examples of teaching cultural values and norms of national memory and ethnic belonging to younger generations (Ben-Amos and Bet-El, 1999; Handelman and Katz, 1990; Lomsky-Feder, 2004, 2011). Such ceremonies – which might last from a few minutes to a few hours – are typical in Greek-Cypriot schools and occur on the average every few weeks (Zembylas, 2013). These ceremonies usually entail the use of religious (Greek-Orthodox cross), state (Cyprus flag) and ethnic symbols (Greek flag) in particular rituals that may include some or all of the following: poetry recitation; a school play that re-enacts the commemorated event or something relevant (which might include elements of soldiering e.g., helmets and military uniforms); military-style marches; songs by the school choir; speeches by officials, including the official circular sent by the Minister of Education to all students and teachers; and, the national anthem.

Some years ago, I attended one such ceremony at an elementary school that commemorated the EOKA struggle against British colonialism. In this particular ceremony, the students entered the school auditorium in military-style marching, holding the Greek and Cypriot flags, while everyone stood in silence. Then there were speeches by the school principal and the local mayor, and the Minister’s circular was read; in all of these speeches the values of heroism and self-sacrifice were emphasised, and the need for young generations to emulate these values was highlighted. There was also some poetry recitation and the singing of patriotic songs, as well as a school play in which some students were dressed in military uniforms re-enacting a battle of EOKA fighters with the British.

After the ceremony, I talked to some participants (students, teachers, parents) and a few days later I followed up with more formal interviews, asking them how they had felt about the ceremony and what they got out of it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most participants shared their feelings of pride for participating in this event, how ‘we’ should honour our heroes and try to emulate their values. What surprised me though was the feelings and thoughts of a fifth-grade girl and a teacher at this school, both of whom expressed some scepticism for such ceremonies. As the teacher told me:

In all honesty, I feel rather uncomfortable with these ceremonies, but most of my colleagues want them, so I usually stay silent. For me, these ceremonies constitute a form of emotional manipulation of children, telling them essentially that they should go and sacrifice themselves in battle. I find this morally inappropriate, but nobody is willing to talk about it. And I clearly don’t want to be the ‘bad’ guy. For me, these kinds of ceremonies constitute a form of legitimation of death and violence. […] I wish we honoured our heroes while emphasising the themes of peace and reconciliation, rather than those of killing and death.

When I asked the fifth-grade girl about her feelings for this ceremony, she said:

I am not really sure. I feel a bit confused. On the one hand, the teachers tell us that we should love peace. On the other hand, I feel that this ceremony tells us something different. […] It tells us it is ok to kill others and that we should sacrifice our lives. So, I am not sure which is the right thing to do.

These two testimonies suggest that the emotional experiences of some students and teachers from participating in these ceremonies varied. As noted earlier, the legitimation of violence and war was not the only message taken from these ceremonies, but rather there was much more nuance and complexity. After all, my own personal experience, as narrated at the beginning of this article, was akin to the emotions described by this teacher and student. While I understood the value of commemorating fallen soldiers, I also became aware of the conflicting messages sent to younger generations and the valorisation of particular kinds of responses aimed at normalising militarist values. Participants interpreted their affects and emotions not only according to what they were expected to do, but also in relation to their personal values and understandings (see also Zembylas and Loukaidis, 2021). The affective milieus of this ceremony, then, were the affective dynamics that lived on within each individual and functioned as an ongoing orientation to everyday life. In this sense, the affective milieus of an event or a phenomenon are not uniform for everyone and they are not experienced by all in the same manner (Maiese, 2022). Once again, de Certeau’s (1984) concepts of strategy and tactic are helpful in understanding the negotiations taking place within the micro worlds of educational everyday life, leading some individuals to reiterate institutional affects and emotions, while others resist those.

5. Conclusions and Implications

This paper has shown the affective impact of militarism in shaping school communities to embrace a set of understandings, norms and values that relate to militarism. By theorising the affective milieus of militarism in schools, we begin to understand what motivates students, teachers, and school communities more generally to participate in commemorative ceremonies that reproduce or resist militarism. In particular, resisting militarism, as the pathway that might be chosen by some members of the school community, involves a serious ethico-political dilemma, namely, how to engage with the value of honouring fallen soldiers without inadvertently condoning the moral and political ideology of militarism (Wegner, 2021). Building on Wegner’s contribution to this issue, a broader question is: How can students, educators, parents, and researchers challenge militarism’s reproduction in micro-political spaces such as schools where military values evoke strong affective investments and attachments?

The examples that I shared in this article show that resisting institutional affects and emotions in school memorial ceremonies can be explained through the lens of de Certeau’s (1984) insights as a ‘tactic’ of responding to cultural and political norms. The nation-state has strong vested interests in ensuring that the discourse of honouring fallen soldiers and the valorisation of particular emotional responses to this value are not seriously questioned (Beier and Tabak, 2020; Pennell, 2020; Rashid, 2020). Yet, what is remarkable in these examples is that despite the strong affective power of military values in schools, students’ and teachers’ responses to militarism do not always operate in expected or uniform ways, enabling different affective attachments. As Wegner (2021) points out, this is not solely an issue of state-directed ideology that imposes certain emotion norms to passive individuals. Rather, teachers and students may sometimes be eager to participate, while other times they may be ambivalent or sceptical. Without insights into the emotional experiences or alternative emotional responses of participants in school commemorative events, we will wrongly conclude that the affective milieus of these events simply ‘reproduce dominant militarist narratives that legitimise military violence in the name of a higher cause (the nation, global good, helping others, and so on)’ (Wegner, 2021, pp. 7–8). However, the reality is much more nuanced and complex and, therefore, it is crucial to examine the multifaceted ways in which militarisms intersect schooling and in which students and teachers, in turn, ‘(re)produce and (re)figure militarisms’ (Beier and Tabak, 2020, p. 291).

Militarism endures, argues Wegner (2021), because it is entangled with affective relations within the micro-worlds of everyday life. Teachers may not be uniformly opposed or enthusiastic about school commemorative events, but their ability to challenge the emotion norms that legitimise military values in schools may be complicated by their emotionally driven ethical responsibilities (cf. Wegner, 2021) towards different social groups – e.g., responsibility to the families of fallen soldiers; responsibility towards younger generations to promote peace rather than violence. Challenging these commemoration events, points out Wegner, may feel impossible for some teachers without potentially damaging their relationships to others in their communities. Hence, it is important to examine whether and how, if at all possible, teachers and students may interrogate institutional militaristic rituals and discourses in schools, without dismissing the emotional benefits that these events might offer to their communities – e.g., feelings of solidarity; feelings of grief and respect for the dead. To move a step further, we may ask: Is it possible to achieve these emotional benefits (e.g., solidarity; respect) through school memorial ceremonies that do not necessarily valorise military values (e.g., violence)?

It is crucial to further investigate, therefore, the affective dimensions of militarism in schools, identifying the emotional and ethical components of challenging school commemorative events that reproduce militarism (cf. Wegner, 2021). Resisting militarism (e.g., in schools) may be discomforting, suggests Wegner, precisely because it may provide emotional solace for some individuals and communities that fosters affective relations and reinscribes certain subjectivities in students and teachers. If militarism is to be challenged, however – e.g., through developing disruptive pedagogical tactics in schools – we must deconstruct institutional discourses and strategies that promote the value of meaningful death in war, ‘acknowledging that [participation in war] is rarely honourable’ (Rashid, 2020, p. 217). Hence, it is worthwhile to examine how communities can benefit emotionally from memorial ceremonies that honour fallen soldiers, while dismantling narratives about the morality of war and military violence. For example, in my long-term ethnographic research I witnessed a few such examples of school memorial ceremonies that highlighted the themes of pain, grief, mourning, solidarity, peace and reconciliation rather than self-sacrifice and violence (see Zembylas, 2013).

Feminist scholarship on affect theories can be useful for critical endeavours that imagine how things could be different. In order to understand the affective investments and attachments produced by militarism in schools, then, I argue that it is valuable to approach militarism in schools as felt. To this end, feminist scholarship on affect theories offer two important insights (Åhäll, 2018, p. 50): First, a way to identify the ‘political’ in affective relations and discourses, because affect generates questions about how the world works in everyday life; second, by feeling differently, a feminist methodology opens up a space for thinking, acting and knowing differently. Although there may be militarist structures of feeling in a society, there are also different affective milieus colliding, thus individuals and communities will encounter and feel those structures differently. If we are truly concerned about the affective practices that establish these structures in schools through commemorative rituals, then we need to devote more attention to the ways that ‘alternative’ affective milieus may be produced, that is, affective spaces that ‘break’ the insulation of military violence from ethical and political critique (Wegner, 2021). As Wegner writes, we must ‘expand our methodological repertoire to understand the pernicious ways that militarism is reproduced affectively and to carefully explore the ways that militarism manifests by feeling right’ (p. 8, original emphasis).

Future research could also seek to investigate how affective attachment to other civic values in schools (e.g., self-discipline; community awareness) become militarised, through the social reproductive activities of school memorial ceremonies or other practices in everyday school life. This analysis begs the question: to what degree do the affective milieus of militarism in schools invoke broader circulations of affects and emotions outside these commemorative events in the everyday lives of teachers and students? I suggest that an investigation of affective transfer of military values in other areas of school or personal life could make an important contribution to analysing the harms or benefits involved in forms of affective governmentality (Penz and Sauer, 2020; Sauer and Penz, 2017), namely, ways that govern students’ and teachers’ conduct by (non-coercive) affective means (Zembylas, 2021). An important task for such work will be investigating the relationship between affective governmentality and affective militarism in schools. In seeking insights into the affective dimensions of militarism in schools, it is crucial to identify the complicated, productive and ambivalent intersections between militarism in schools and broader moral and political economies of military cultures.

6. Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.