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Sep 25, 2020 13 tweets 7 min read Read on X
#NVHOW20 Introducing Hannah West @hannah_r_west @UniofBath @DefenceResNet 'What did YOU do in the war, Mummy?' - an examination of the British Army’s attempts to exclude women from the history of combat and front-line service #womenatwar #wealsoserve
1 #NVHOW20 Let’s get started… You may know that in 2018 the British Armed Forces opened all roles to women, yet it is a myth to say that women are only now able to serve in ‘frontline combat’
2 #NVHOW20 Women have been distanced from ‘frontline combat’ by discursive constructions using their bodies to deny them agency and make their presence acceptable. Yet women have repeatedly transgressed the front-line, demonstrating agency in their participation.
3 #NVHOW20 My PhD research uses Foucauldian genealogy to explore the discursive construction of ‘women as counterinsurgents’ in Malaya, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. I have used semi-structured interviews + archival records to uncover discontinuities + forgotten discourses.
4 #NVHOW20 During the 1950s Malaya Emergency, Lady Templer, might not have been in uniform or armed, but pioneered a huge women’s outreach programme patrolling to remote + high-risk villages. Her contribution is not in the history books.
5 #NVHOW20 270 Women’s Institutes were established + 25 British Red Cross teams set up local branches. Lady Templer was described as having an ‘electric effect’ by the SoS for Colonies + as a ‘cunning bandit’ by the Communists.
6 #NVHOW20 In 1970/80s Northern Ireland, unarmed servicewomen were on patrol daily. The British Security Forces top-down ‘non-combatant’ narrative was in tension with a bottom-up, tactical need for women as searchers, questioners and decoys. (Photo: royal-irish.com)
7 #NVHOW20 Women veterans told me how - without weapons - they held back crowds with their arms + patrolled in skirts (it was thought the IRA wouldn’t target a female profile). Women commanded mixed infantry units + worked on covert operations. (Photo: royal-irish.com)
8 #NVHOW20 In Afghanistan female soldiers – Female Engagement Teams - were used on patrol to talk to the community. Visibly welcomed by positive narratives they were invisibly undermined by the gendered institution Check out: alisonbaskerville.co.uk/The-White-Pict…
9 #NVHOW20 Discursive constructions portrayed women as largely incompetent but occasionally exceptional, often equated to inanimate weapon systems. Somehow women negotiated their way out on the ground, using their medic status, or finding other units happy to take them.
10 #NVHOW20 So to wrap up, British Security Forces repeatedly attempted, but failed, to control women’s war labour through constructions of the ‘frontline’, ‘combat’ + campaign narratives. My research recentres women’s voices to undermine the imposed tools of their exclusion.
11 #NVHOW20 Being a former servicewoman, I have had to engage with my military past in this reflexive study. Creative methods have helped me to embrace this, making collaborative poetry, music and documentary film:
hannah-west.org/hannah-west/cr…
12 Ask me questions @hannah_r_west

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More from @SocHistoryWar

Sep 25, 2020
#NVHOW20 We survived one ‘friendly fire’ incident and the vagaries of internet connections in rural Gloucestershire, aka two tin cans and a length of string!
#NVHOW20 It’s been a fascinating afternoon. Please feel free to continue asking questions and discussing the presentations.
@SocHistoryWar now has its AGM, beginning at 17:00. The keynote speech by @BeatriceHeuser on ‘Compassion and War’ will be available soon. Watch this space!
Read 5 tweets
Sep 25, 2020
#NVHOW20 Introducing Francesca Hooft @FrancescaHooft @UtrechtUni ‘Hippocrates under arms: adaptation, cooperation, and agency’ - the experiences and agency of Dutch military medical personnel in post 1990 peace, combat, and humanitarian missions #oralhistory #UNpeacekeeping
1 #NVHOW20 Good afternoon! My name is Francesca Hooft and I’m a PhD candidate @UniUtrecht. I research the changing role of military medical personnel within the Dutch armed forces in deployments between 1990 and 2010, focussing on physicians’ and nurses’ personal experiences.
2 #NVHOW20 The position of medical personnel within the armed forces has always been considered ambiguous and problematic. The military demands a high level of obedience and loyalty. Hierarchy may impede agency to act according to medical professional values and standards.
Read 14 tweets
Sep 25, 2020
#NVHOW20 Introducing Dr Victoria Woodman @v_woodman ‘Waiting is the Women’s Role: the Falklands Conflict media representation of Royal Navy Wives’ - media coverage and their representation as a homogeneous
1 #NVHOW20 How were Task Force families portrayed in newspapers and television reports during the Falklands Conflict? Much has been written on how the media accompanied the task force, the journalists sent, the MoD release of news and the political attacks made on the media.
2 #NVHOW20 Fifty naval wives interviewed for my research stated that the primary method of receiving updates on the conflict was through the media. The media reports portrayed them at the time in terms of loyalty. Gender divisions were distinctly defined; men/battle, women/home. Image
Read 14 tweets
Sep 25, 2020
#NVHOW20 Introducing Grace Stephenson @GStephensonHist @durham_uni @CDPConnect 'Newsreels and the Narrative of World War II - how the narratives evident in World War II cinema newsreels have become embedded within British culture #SWW #WWII #Homefront #SecondWorldWar #Newsreels
1 #NVHOW20 Five companies produced British newsreels in #WWII holding a monopoly over the British newsreel industry. In 1937 they set up the Newsreel Association of Great Britain & Ireland (NRA). Most communication between the companies & the government was through the NRA.
2 #NVHOW20 The NRA’s purpose was:'...to promote & protect the interests...of associates engaged in the production & distribution of...Newsreels...& to bring about & maintain co-operation'. One of the primary concerns for wartime newsreels was censorship. [Image: @MediaMuseum]
Read 13 tweets
Sep 25, 2020
#NVHOW20 Introducing Jonathan Ruffle @JonathanRuffle ‘TOMMIES’ – The First World War as BBC Radio Drama’- the conception and building of the 11th November 1918 episode of the @BBCRadio4 drama set 150 miles up the Dvina River in northern Russia #FWW #WW1 #FirstWorldWar
1 #NVHOW20 Hi #twitterhistorians. I'm @JonathanRuffle. I created, co-wrote and co-produced a 42-episode real-time BBC Radio 4 drama called TOMMIES about the First World War. Image
2 #NVHOW20 Our 1918 Armistice Day episode was set in Russia with the 2/10 Battalion Royal Scots up the Dvina River. But I started where we all do. ImageImage
Read 11 tweets
Sep 25, 2020
#NVHOW20 Introducing Harriet Jackson @harrietj1928 “This Whole Wretched Mess”: Representations of the First World War in Children’s Literature’ - the cultural memory of the First World War and its representation in the children’s literature #FWW #WW1#FirstWorldWar
1 #NVHOW20 My research examined the relationship between the public memory of WW1 and its representation in children’s books over the past 20 years. This isn’t simply top-down; in some areas children’s literature echoes popular ideas of WW1, and in other ways it challenges them.
2 #NVHOW20 Today, I’ll focus on one common element, the home/away/home structure found in books, from Peter Rabbit to the Hunger Games, but seen really clearly in War Horse: Joey and Albert start the book at home in Devon, go away to war and return home at the end of the book. Image
Read 14 tweets

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