Theorizing Continuity: From Military to Civilian Life

Abstract

While a considerable literature has developed exploring the ways in which military socialization is able to transform individuals from "civilian" to "service" persons, work focusing on the longer-term legacy of these experiences, post-discharge in the civilian environment, is relatively underdeveloped and tends to deal exclusively with paid employment. I tentatively suggest in this article that the concepts of gender (masculinity) and the "sociology of the body" can be put to work to illuminate a number of the potentially long-term transformations effected during immersion in the British armed forces. These unifying themes may transcend the (apparent) diversity of circumstances ex-servicemen experience, from "success" in paid civilian employment, to "failure" in the case of homelessness among a number of the ex-forces population. Both outocmes may be marked by their strongly masculinized contexts, together with concomitant demands made on the physical body. I conclude by arguing that the sociology of the military might benefit from developing contemporary theoretical literatures-including more poststructural approachesthat are laregely absent from the more usual organizational focus.