Researching retired ex-servicemen: reflections on ethnographic encounters

ABSTRACT

The opportunities and challenges that younger, female, civilian researchers can encounter when undertaking ethnographic research with predominantly male military veterans are relatively underexplored sociologically. This is despite a growing literature on reflexivity in military studies over the past decade. To address this gap, we draw on symbolic interactionist insights to examine the reflective account of a British, female researcher in her mid-20s, who conducted qualitative research with 20 ‘older’ (aged 60+) retired servicemen from the Royal British Legion, a United Kingdom charity providing support for military veterans and their families. The study explored ex-servicemen’s embodied experiences of physical activity. The findings presented here cohere around four salient themes identified in the ethnographic reflections: (1) researcher positionality as a young, female, civilian researcher in a traditionally masculine militarised world; (2) managing distressing topics and interactional discomfort; (3) maintaining an ‘ethic of care’; and (4) dilemmas regarding representational issues and ex-servicemen’s embodied experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Sociology
• ethnographic reflections
• retired servicemen
• symbolic interactionism
• bracketing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Servicemen were selected, as one of the key areas of interest in the doctoral study focused on older men’s embodiment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachel Katherine Williams

Dr Rachel Katherine Williams is a Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. Often framed by qualitative approaches, her research focuses upon studies of health, ageing, sport, physical activity, gender and embodied experiences.

Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson

Professor Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson is Professor in Sociology and Physical Culture, and Director of the Health Advancement Research Team (HART), based in the School of Sport & Exercise Science, University of Lincoln, UK. Currently pursuing her interest in combining sociology and phenomenology, her research interests include the lived experience of health and illness conditions in sport and physical cultures, together with the sociology of the senses.

John Hockey

Dr John Hockey teaches Research Methodology for the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham, Cologne and Munich. He has researched and published extensively across the sociologies of education, work and sport. He is author of a pioneering ethnography of UK infantry (Squaddies: Portrait of a subculture, Exeter University Press, 1986).