Abstract
AbstractThis article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British Army Reserves. The project, which examined the everyday work-Army-life balance challenges that reservists face, and the roles of their partners/spouses in enabling them to fulfil their military commitments, is an example of a potential contribution to the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, where publicly funded research has come to be seen as ‘functional’ for political, military, economic, and social advancement. As feminist interpretive researchers examining an institution that prizes masculinist and functionalist methodologies, instrumentalised knowledge production, and highly formalised ethics approval processes, we faced multiple challenges to how we were able to conduct our research, who we were able to access, and what we were able to say. We show how military assumptions about what constitutes proper ‘research’, bolstered by knowledge economy logics, reinforces gendered power relationships that keep hidden the significant roles women (in our case, the partners/spouses of reservists) play in state security. Accordingly, we argue that the functionalist and masculinist logics interpretive researchers face in the age of the knowledge economy help more in sustaining orthodox modes of knowledge production about militaries and security, and in reinforcing gendered power relations, than they do in advancing knowledge.
Highlights
The circumstances under which academics produce knowledge, and how and why certain modes of knowledge become valued over others, has long interested International Relations (IR) scholars.1 While research expertise is under fire from ‘fake news’ and anti-intellectual strains of populism, knowledge has always played an important role in human advancement
We argue that the functionalist and masculinist logics interpretive researchers face in the age of the knowledge economy help more in sustaining orthodox modes of knowledge production about militaries and security, and in reinforcing gendered power relations, than they do in advancing knowledge
Once it became apparent during fieldwork that the recruitment strategies for spouse/partners approved by Army Scientific Advisory Committee (ASAC) and MoD’s Research Ethics Committee (MoDREC) were not working, we considered breaching the protocol and resorting to snowball recruiting
Summary
The circumstances under which academics produce knowledge, and how and why certain modes of knowledge become valued over others, has long interested International Relations (IR) scholars. While research expertise is under fire from ‘fake news’ and anti-intellectual strains of populism, knowledge has always played an important role in human advancement. While research expertise is under fire from ‘fake news’ and anti-intellectual strains of populism, knowledge has always played an important role in human advancement. Faced with increasing deindustrialisation and greater outsourcing of manufacturing and service jobs to developing economies, many governments in the Global North have come to believe that continued economic prosperity will come from growing their ‘knowledge economies’.2. This term, 212 Sergio Catignani and Victoria M. In the context of the knowledge economy, universities have become producers of entrepreneurial knowledge; UK universities have been described by the government as ‘powerhouses’ that ‘create the knowledge, capability and expertise that drive competitiveness’.5 Basham while often over-used and ill defined, broadly refers to the idea that knowledge, conceived of as ‘creative problem-solving’, has utility that drives economic development. In the context of the knowledge economy, universities have become producers of entrepreneurial knowledge; UK universities have been described by the government as ‘powerhouses’ that ‘create the knowledge, capability and expertise that drive competitiveness’.5
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