Scottish soldier-heroes and patriotic war heroines: the gendered politics of World War I commemoration

Abstract

This paper explores the (re)production of embodied gendered and racialised identities as part of commemorations devised by the Scottish government to mark the Centenary of WWI, 2014–18. In particular, we demonstrate how the Centenary has re-established Scotland’s key contribution to British military power instead of providing a platform for a broader discussion of British wars and Scotland’s role therein. Our analysis posits that this reframing was achieved through the (re)production of a gendered polarisation between white ‘dead’ soldier-heroes, ‘local lads’ and bearers of a ‘proud Scottish military tradition’; and women as embodiments of patriotic motherhood. We further explore the deployment of specific discursive and performative means to transform Dr Elsie Inglis, the only woman whose contribution was singled out by WW100 Scotland, into a patriotic war heroine. This was achieved by the militarisation of her work; the obscuring of identity, class- and race-based hierarchies within women’s war-work; and, finally, through the subversion of feminist ideas and practices in Inglis’ work for the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. Lastly, we reflect on the gendered legacy of the Centenary, emphasising the necessity for critical engagement with Britain’s wars and Scotland’s role therein.

Keywords:

• Britain
• commemoration
• gender
• militarisation
• performance

Acknowledgements

The draft of this paper was presented at the EWIS in Groningen, 6–9 June 2018, and we would like to thank participants for instructive feedback. We also express our gratitude to those who promoted the legacy of Dr. Elsie Inglis for many years, and agreed to comment on the draft of this paper. Finally, we would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article as well as Cynthia Enloe and Andrew Mycock for their feedback and encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The project received support from the Committee for Research Ethics and Governance at the School of Social Science, the University of Aberdeen. The research team utilised a mixed method qualitative methodology, including critical discourse analysis of government-produced commemorative publications, parliamentary debates, stenogrammes of meetings and other relevant documents. We also deployed participant ethnographies of commemorative events as a key way to gauge the information about how events are performed. As part of the whole project, we conducted 27 interviews with policy makers, curators of military museums, representatives of the Royal British Legion Scotland and Poppy Scotland, Education advisers, and members of other war-themed organisations. In this paper, we predominantly rely on the analysis of documents and participant ethnographies, utilising interviews only as a means to triangulate our interpretations. Each interviewee has been anonymised and given a code letter.

Additional information

Funding

This paper results from the project, ‘War Commemoration, Military Culture and Identity Politics in Scotland’ funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities in Scotland, 2017–18 (RG13890/70560).

Notes on contributors

Nataliya Danilova

Nataliya Danilova is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. She has published in the field of critical military studies, the politics of war memory, gender and war, and civil-military relations. Her latest book, The Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia (Palgrave, 2015) explores the instrumentalization of commemorative discourses and practices enacted to support militaristic foreign policy agendas.

Emma Dolan

Emma Dolan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. Her work focuses on the topic of political apology in International Relations, and attempts to provide a performative examination of public apologetic statements given by state representatives for militarised sexual violence.