The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods

ISBN-13: 9781472442758 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 432 str.

Alison J. Williams; Rachel Woodward; Matthew Rech

Opis

This new handbook is about the practices of conducting research on military issues.

As an edited collection, it brings together an extensive group of authors from a range of disciplinary perspectives whose chapters engage with the conceptual, practical and political questions raised when doing military research. The book considers a wide range of questions around research about, on and with military organisations, personnel and activities, from diverse starting-points across the social sciences, arts and humanities.

Each chapter in this volume:

• Describes the nature of the military research topic under scrutiny and explains what research practices were undertaken and why.
• Discusses the author's research activities, addressing the nature of their engagement with their subjects and explaining how the method or approach under scrutiny was distinctive because of the military context or subject of the research.
• Reflects on the author s research experiences, and the specific, often unique, negotiations with the politics and practices of military institutions and military personnel before, during and after their research fieldwork.

The book provides a focussed overview of methodological approaches to critical studies of military personnel and institutions, and processes and practices of militarisation and militarism. In particular, it engages with the growth in qualitative approaches to military research, particularly research carried out on military topics outside military research institutions. The handbook provides the reader with a comprehensive guide to how critical military research is being undertaken by social scientists and humanities scholars today, and sets out suggestions for future approaches to military research.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war and conflict studies, and research methods in general."

Recenzje

‘In the face of increasing conflict and growing security and defence threats, social scientists today are increasingly interested in the armed forces. Drawing together leading scholars in the field, this volume dissects the distinctive methodological challenges which attend military research. It will be required reading for any scholar interested in researching the armed forces.’-- Anthony King, Warwick University, UK