WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WAR: An ethnographic study of storytelling and the work of words Open Access
Lewis, Matthew (Summer 2018)
Abstract
It is assumed that war is traumatizing. However, not all soldiers assess their deployment as traumatic. Drawing on life-narrative interviews, extensive participant observation, and literary sources describing the experience of war, this qualitative ethnography focuses on the experiences of high-functioning male veterans of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How do they tell the story of what it means to go to war? Their personal narratives are a combination of subjective experience and the cultural conventions that help provide frameworks for interpretation. Therefore, this study also explores how cultural meta-narratives facilitate and/or negatively impact the ability of those working to make meaning of their war experience.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........... 1
Memory and trauma / Narrative, storytelling and trauma... 3
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the specificity of our recent history... 6
Chapter outline... 7
CHAPTER 1........... 8
Methods....... 8
Interviews... 9
Participant observation... 16
Including publicly available war stories... 20
Including the personal ‘I’... 22
An interdisciplinary approach... 24
Concluding thoughts... 25
CHAPTER 2........... 27
Toward a Working Theory of Narrative....... 27
Psychology and life stories... 30
Stories are relational constructions... 35
The complexity of language... 43
The role of temporality... 51
Concluding thoughts... 58
CHAPTER 3........... 62
Toward a Working Theory of Trauma....... 62
Theories of trauma and war... 67
Between soldiers and society. Between veterans and civilians.... 75
Post Traumatic Stress and moral injury: categories and categorizations... 83
Concluding thoughts... 91
CHAPTER 4........... 96
War Stories....... 96
War is boring, fun, funny, hot, and full of sand... 98
War is fear. War is death… But it could have been worse.... 101
War is meaningful. War is Brotherhood. War is thrilling. War is love… But only when the mission makes sense.... 106
What is a true war story, who is authorized to tell it, and who can understand?... 112
Concluding thoughts... 117
CHAPTER 5........... 119
The Return....... 119
The civil-military divide... 121
Thank you for your service... 128
The ‘War Ego’ and ‘The Peace Ego’... 132
Concluding thoughts... 136
CODA........... 139
Summer 2015... 139
Spring 2018... 141
Concluding thoughts... 143
Works Cited: Printed Sources........... 146
Works Cited: Non-Printed Sources........... 152
List of Tables and Figures
Table 1 – List of Interviews........... 10
Table 2 - List of Formal Settings for Participant Observation........... 18
About this Dissertation
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