Unconquerable Heroes: Invictus, Redemption, and the Cultural Politics of Narrative

Abstract

The wounded veteran is a challenging subject for the state. These subjects must be narratively managed and reclaimed in ways which both recognize the violence of warfare and render critical responses inappropriate. Using the example of the Invictus Games, this paper argues that the wounded military body can be recast through emotional-political narratives of techno-heroic redemption. Through the display of ‘cyborg bodies’, elite sports men and women with prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs and national flags draped around their shoulders, the Games have become performance of a posthuman body, with a ‘more-than-human’ capacity to transgress boundaries of human capability. This paper contributes to existing literatures on the politics of veteran injury, sport and war, and to wider debates regarding the regulation of violence and narratives of war by the liberal state, and raises questions about who may be written out of the Invictus story.

KEYWORDS:

• Invictus games
• militarism
• narrative
• heroes
• redemption

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the ESRC under grant number 1332438 (Alice Cree).

The authors are grateful to Rachel Woodward and Louise Amoore, for providing invaluable feedback at various stages of the writing process. Thanks also to the editor and anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments and generous engagement with the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Alice Cree is a Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Politics & Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. Her main area of expertise is in Critical Military Studies, with a particular focus on feminist and creative methodologies. She holds a PhD in Political Geography from Durham University.

Nick Caddick is a Research Fellow at the Veterans and Families Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, UK. Nick’s area of expertise is Critical Military Studies and his research focuses on narrative as a means of exploring the individual and societal legacy of conflict. He holds a PhD in Narrative and Mental Health from Loughborough University.

Notes

1 This kind of rhetoric was used even more recently by Katie Hopkins in her ‘Stand With Our Lads’ campaign against the MoD’s investigation into serving soldiers who had their picture taken with Tommy Robinson (The Rebel Media, 2018).

2 Unfortunately, the three images from Tanner’s collection that are discussed in this paper are copyright protected, and so we are unable to reproduce them. However, the full collection can be viewed using the following link: http://time.com/4329155/inspiring-portraits-veteransinvictus-games/.

3 Indeed, on the Invictus Games website, it is claimed that the Games seeks to address the challenge of ‘How can [wounded members of the armed forces] be recognized for their achievements and not given sympathy?’ (Invictus Games, 2016e).

4 Again, these images can be viewed using the following link: http://time.com/4329155/inspiringportraits-veterans-invictus-games/.

5 These stories are told as part of the media coverage of the games itself (e.g., in the opening and closing ceremonies), but also through specific documentaries such as ‘Invictus: Battle to the Start Line’ first broadcast on BBC on 13 September 2017.

6 Sport also provides a vehicle for reconnecting with those aspects of military identity – purpose, direction, social connection – which are often most valued by members of the military, thus providing continuity with a soldierly identity (Caddick & Smith, 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ESRC [grant number: 1332438].