![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper provides a series of critical reflections on the tensions involved in researching the lives of military veterans. In particular, tensions arising when civilian researchers attempt to speak on behalf of veterans, combined with problematic attempts to achieve an academic ‘understanding’ of veterans’ lives, generate concerns regarding the potential misrepresentation of their unique experiences. Following recent examples in critical military studies, these issues are brought to the fore through dialogue and critical debate with colleagues and research participants. The paper first introduces a theoretical backdrop to the tensions being debated. Following Gadamer, the concept of ‘horizons of understanding’ is then introduced to suggest how we might usefully consider and address these tensions. Horizons comprise that which we are able to understand based on prior knowing. It is argued that ‘dialogical’ research constitutes one possible means of expanding our horizons in work with veterans. Challenges to dialogical research are discussed in light of prevailing conditions within and beyond neoliberal academia, before concluding with practical suggestions of how dialogical research might generate more productive and responsible research with military veterans.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. First author, Nick Caddick. While this paper discusses my personal reflections and thus is written in the first person, authors two and three contributed ideas and content that helped to form the arguments made and this is reflected in the authorship.
2. This paper reflects on key issues which arose during and as a result of conducting my doctoral research with veterans, rather than on the research topic itself of surfing and PTSD, which has been covered elsewhere (e.g. Caddick and Smith Citation2017; Caddick, Smith, and Phoenix Citation2015a, Citation2015b).
3. I will return to Frank’s notion of dialogical research later in this essay.
4. Gadamer rescues the term ‘prejudice’ from the negative connotations it has acquired, using it to refer to that which is already known or believed.
5. Indeed, ethnographies such as Drink and Duty (Fox Citation2010) can provide some of the richest, most detailed, and most nuanced explanations of a particular culture.
6. We later debated and critiqued the possibility of a truly ‘objective’ analysis.
7. It is notable that reflexive attention to researchers’ own positions has emanated predominantly from scholars adopting a critical stance towards military studies, rather than from ‘mainstream’ military sociology, psychology, and other disciplines.
8. Counter-narratives provide a potential means of disrupting the dominant perspective. Possible counter-narratives include veterans as activists (Flores Citation2017) or as successful ‘adapters’ of military skills, living productive civilian lives (McDermott Citation2007).
9. The UK’s Research Excellence Framework for judging and evaluating the quality of research output.
10. See Martin (Citation2011) for a useful critique.
11. Smith (Citation2008) offers a critique of researchers’ attempts to imaginatively project themselves into others’ lives in order to claim a sense of understanding or empathy regarding their experiences. To make such claims, Smith suggests, risks denying the difference between self and other and is one way in which researchers might commit ‘symbolic violence’ against the Other.