
Regimented Life
An Ethnography of Army Wives
Alexandra Hyde(Author)
Edinburgh University Press
Published on 6. December 2023
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-1-4744-4392-0 (ISBN)
Description
Based on unprecedented ethnographic access to a regimental community in Germany during a period of deployment to Afghanistan, this analysis of the ambiguities of gendered agency focuses not on the front-line experience of soldiers, but on that of the wives 'left behind'. Alexandra Hyde explores the mobile and contradictory position of civilian women as they navigate British Army culture and its reified production of social belonging. The book considers wives' exposure to - and implication in - processes of militarisation and, ultimately, war and state-sanctioned violence as they 'live with' rather than 'serve in' the military. Chapters explore multiple circuits of mobility and migration; women's productive and reproductive labour; rank and its relationship to class and ethnicity; and women's pre-emptive management of grief and human vulnerability. What emerges is a critical, feminist exploration of the composite relations of gender, class, sexuality and nation that combine to make and remake military power.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
517 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-4392-0 (9781474443920)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€87.49
Available for download

E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€87.49
Available for download
Person
Alexandra Hyde is a Lecturer in Gender Studies at University College London, where she is Co-Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII). Her research on women's experiences of war and military power has been published in journals such as Gender, Place and Culture, along with methodological reflections and work on feminist epistemology in the Journal of Narrative Politics and elsewhere. Her novel, Violets, was published by Granta in 2021 and touches on many related themes, which also feed into her teaching on the MA in Gender, Society and Representation at UCL.
Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Follow the Cake Stall
Interstitial I: Bicycle
Chapter One: Military Mobilities
Interstitial II: Dining Out
Chapter Two: Ranking Difference and Distinction
Interstitial III: 'Female in Shower' and Other Signs
Chapter Three: Regimented Life
Interstitial IV: Shock-the-Civilian Stories
Conclusion: The "Cotton Wool Effect"?
Bibliography
Introduction: Follow the Cake Stall
Interstitial I: Bicycle
Chapter One: Military Mobilities
Interstitial II: Dining Out
Chapter Two: Ranking Difference and Distinction
Interstitial III: 'Female in Shower' and Other Signs
Chapter Three: Regimented Life
Interstitial IV: Shock-the-Civilian Stories
Conclusion: The "Cotton Wool Effect"?
Bibliography