Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality and Women's Experience of Modern War, 1914-18

本研究探讨的经验，社区，工作，友谊，亲密关系，和欲望的英美妇女谁在英国或附近的西部战线在第一次世界大战期间，以批判和扰乱性别和战争的历史和实践的女同性恋，男同性恋和酷儿的历史。在关注利用现代战争的社会破坏的妇女时，我的项目以挑衅性和揭示性的方式展示了性和性别的特殊流动性，从而突出了当前历史工作的成就和缺点，在性别历史的情况下，往往忽视女性的性行为，或者在女同性恋历史的情况下，太容易声称个人的性别认同是一个陌生或不熟悉的过程。 首先出现在20世纪70年代的解放政治中，后来又出现了福柯对知识和权力的分析，出于政治动机的男女同性恋生活谱系在巩固身份和社区方面发挥了至关重要的作用。然而，随着90年代酷儿理论的出现，围绕异性恋/同性恋二元的身份形成似乎越来越不稳定，这表明需要重新思考性历史化的可用途径。在女同性恋者，男同性恋者和酷儿史学的一系列做法持续的批评开放，这本书探讨了几个概念的关键身份历史分类，身份，规范性和偏差总是在现代战争的性别经验的具体方面。利用广泛存在的性别混淆的机会，一些女性--如Elsie Knocker和Mairi Chisholm--利用她们新获得的行动自由变得更像男性，在家里和前线附近从事多样化和非传统的就业形式。性别历史学家和女同性恋历史学家有时会将这些女性与现代的“女同性恋”类别联系起来，尽管这些女性自己可能并没有自我认同。仔细研究日记、已发表和未发表的著作、官方文件、相册、剪报等档案痕迹，并澄清这些妇女生活和工作的社会和文化背景，并不是要放弃身份历史，因为继续认识其政治价值是很重要的。相反，其目的是提请注意其局限性，然后确定是否有必要对其进行修改，设计新的框架或要求交叉模型。随着身份政治的退潮，无论是女同性恋、男同性恋还是同性恋，我们都需要更好地理解历史编纂实践是如何塑造和制约我们对性过去的看法的，即使其他人被掩盖或排除在外，也会使一些行为、欲望、身份或关系更加清晰地成为焦点。 女同性恋、男同性恋和酷儿的历史需要更大的方法论的灵活性、弹性甚至多元性--这是一种冒险的冒险，类似于历史学家琼·斯科特（Joan Scott）的“未定历史”概念，“没有清晰的地图，也没有下一步的计划”（2007年）。一种新的研究性历史的方法，不那么依赖于规范和越轨之间的紧张关系，不那么受现代政治身份的束缚，有望让人们接触到尚不可见甚至不可想象的性行为。通过选择这个丰富而引人注目的巨大社会动荡时代作为重新审视性历史的场所，《令人不安的做法》描绘了现代战争中妇女经历的地形图，维斯她们重新定义的性别角色，以取代“女同性恋”，并将标签和类别问题化，以更好地应对女性性行为的流动性。这个项目指出了一个令人兴奋的新方向，在妇女，性和第一次世界大战的历史编纂通过与酷儿理论的前沿参与。

This study examines the experiences, communities, work, friendships, intimacies, and desires of Anglo-American women who served in Britain or near the Western Front during the First World War in order to critique and disturb both the history of gender and war and the practice of lesbian, gay, and queer history. In focusing on women who exploited the social disruptions of modern war, my project demonstrates in provocative and revealing ways the exceptional fluidity of sexuality and gender, and thus highlights the achievements and shortcomings of current historical work that, in the case of gender history, too often overlooks female sexuality or, in the case of lesbian history, too readily claims individuals for whom sexual identity was an alien or unfamiliar process. Emerging first from the liberation politics of the 1970s and, later, the Foucauldian analysis of knowledge and power, politically motivated genealogies of lesbian and gay lives have played a crucial role in consolidating identities and communities. However, with the advent of 90s queer theory, identity formations pivoting around a hetero/homo binary appear increasingly unstable, suggesting the need to rethink available pathways in historicizing sexuality. Opening with a sustained critique of a range of practices in lesbian, gay and queer historiographies, the book explores several concepts crucial to identity history-categorization, identity, normativity and deviance-always in relation to specific aspects of the gendered experience of modern war. Capitalizing on the opportunities of widespread gender confusion, some women-such as Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm-used their newfound freedom of movement to become more like men, taking up diverse and unconventional forms of employment, both at home and in proximity to the front lines. Gender historians and historians of lesbianism have sometimes linked such women to the modern category of 'lesbian,' even though these women themselves may not have self-identified as such. The objective of scrutinizing archival traces-diaries, published and unpublished writings, official papers, photograph albums, newspaper cuttings-and clarifying the social and cultural context of these women's lives and work is not to propose an abandonment of identity history, for it is important to continue recognizing its political value. Instead, the aim is to draw attention to its limitations and then determine whether it is necessary to modify it, devise new frameworks or call for intersecting models. With the ebb of identity politics-whether lesbian, gay or queer-we need to better understand how historiographical practices have shaped and conditioned our view of the sexual past, bringing some acts, desires, identities or relations more clearly into focus even as others are obscured or excluded. Lesbian, gay and queer history requires greater methodological pliancy, elasticity and even pluralism-a risky venture akin to historian Joan Scott's notion of an 'undetermined history,' with 'no clear map, no plan for what comes next' (2007). A new approach to the history of sexuality less reliant on the tension between normative and deviant, less tethered to modern political identities, promises to yield access to sexualities as yet invisible or even inconceivable. By choosing this rich and compelling era of tremendous social upheaval as a site in which to re-examine the history of sexuality, Disturbing Practices maps the topography of women's experiences of modern war vis-à-vis their redefined gender roles to displace the 'lesbian' and problematize labels and categories to better grapple with the fluidity of female sexuality. This project points to an exciting new direction in the historiography of women, sexuality, and the First World War through an engagement with the cutting-edge of queer theory.