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

令人不安的做法：现代战争的历史、性和女性经历，1914-18

• 批准号: AH/H004149/1
• 负责人: Laura Doan
• 金额: $ 4.37万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2010 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FH004149%2F1
• 关键词: Disturbing; Practices; History; Sexuality; Women

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 The objective of scrutinizing archival traces-diaries, published and unpublished writings, official papers, photograph albums, newspaper cuttings-and clarifying the social and cultural context of these women's lives and work is not to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.

这项研究考察了第一次世界大战期间在英国或西线附近服役的英美女性的经历、社区、工作、友谊、亲密和欲望，以批评和扰乱性别和战争的历史，以及女同性恋、男同性恋和同性恋的历史实践。通过关注利用现代战争的社会混乱的女性，我的项目以挑衅性的和揭示的方式展示了性和性别的异常流动性，从而突出了当前历史工作的成就和不足，在性别史的情况下，太多地忽视了女性的性，或者在女同性恋史的情况下，太容易声称对个人来说，性身份是一个陌生或陌生的过程。首先是20世纪70年代的解放政治，后来是福柯学派对知识和权力的分析，出于政治动机的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，围绕异性恋者/同性恋者二元的身份形成似乎越来越不稳定，这表明有必要重新考虑将性行为历史化的可行途径。这本书以对女同性恋者、男同性恋者和同性恋者历史学中的一系列做法的持续批评开始，探索了身份历史的几个关键概念-归类、身份、正常性和偏离-总是与现代战争的性别经历的特定方面有关。利用普遍存在的性别混乱的机会，一些妇女--如Elsie Knocker和Mairi Chisholm--利用她们新获得的行动自由，变得更像男子，在家里和前线附近从事各种非传统形式的就业。性别历史学家和女同性恋主义历史学家有时会将这类女性与现代的“女同性恋”类别联系在一起，尽管这些女性本身可能并没有这样的自我认同。审查档案痕迹--日记、已出版和未出版的著作、官方文件、相册、剪报--并澄清这些妇女生活和工作的社会和文化背景，目的不是建议放弃身份历史，因为重要的是继续承认其政治价值。相反，其目的是提请人们注意其局限性，然后确定是否有必要对其进行修改、设计新的框架或呼吁建立交叉模型。随着身份政治的消退--无论是女同性恋者、男同性恋者还是同性恋者--我们需要更好地理解历史学实践是如何塑造和制约我们对性过去的看法的，让一些行为、欲望、身份或关系更清晰地成为人们关注的焦点，尽管其他行为、欲望、身份或关系却被遮蔽或排除在外。女同性恋者、男同性恋者和同性恋者的历史需要更大的方法灵活性、弹性，甚至是多元性--这是一种冒险，类似于历史学家琼·斯科特(Joan Scott)的“未确定的历史”概念，“没有清晰的地图，也没有接下来会发生什么的计划”(2007)。一种不那么依赖于规范和离经叛道之间的紧张关系，不那么依赖于现代政治身份的新方法，有望带来迄今看不见甚至是不可想象的性行为。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行为历史的场所，令人不安的做法绘制了现代战争中女性经历的地形与她们重新定义的性别角色之间的关系，以取代“女同性恋者”，并使标签和类别更好地应对女性性行为的流动性。这个项目通过与酷儿理论的前沿接触，指出了女性、性行为和第一次世界大战史学中令人兴奋的新方向。