In-between military and civilian: ongoing conflict, disability, and masculinity

Abstract

This article deals with the construction of militarised masculinity of disabled veterans in the interplay of official identity and embodied everyday experience in the context of an ongoing internal armed conflict. It explores a militarised masculinity with shifting meanings and interpretations in response to different phases of the ongoing Kurdish conflict in Turkey, with reference to the everyday, disability, and vulnerability, complicating the boundaries between making and unmaking of militarised masculinity. Drawing on empirical data, this article focuses on two key historical moments to explain the shifting meanings of gendered militarisation - the Kurdish peace process between 2009-2015 and the aftermath of the 15th July 2016 coup attempt. Both moments are significant to explore the militarised masculinity of the disabled veterans as they both appear in veterans' narratives as moments of loss of masculine privilege, reflecting their shifting relations with the state and broader society. This article explores how instability caused by the transformation of official military identity leads disabled veterans to renegotiate the boundaries along the gender and military-civilian divides in their efforts to reclaim their lost masculine privileges. It also demonstrates how proximity to a particular form of violence becomes significant in reclaiming distinctiveness of their veteran identity.