Non-combatants on the 'front line': British Army control of servicewomen's war labour in Northern Ireland

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British servicewomen are largely invisible in the public story of the Northern Ireland conflict and where they do appear they are assumed to have had largely supporting roles distant from the fighting. As a former servicewoman I have been privileged to have been able to speak with many female veterans of this conflict and their stories tell of operating on the 'front line'. Whether as policewomen with the Royal Ulster Constablulary or soldiers with the Ulster Defence Regiment, servicewomen were out on patrol night after night, being shot at and threatened despite, for much of the campaign, being unarmed and dressed in skirts (because it was felt a female profile would not be targeted by the IRA). In contrast, their counterparts from the Women's Royal Army Corps on covert operations were armed and were much less restricted in what they were allowed to do. My research exposes how servicewomen were unnecessarily put at risk due to policy decisions about uniform and equipment and the supposed protection by male colleagues was often inadequate.Throughout my interviews with women veterans of the Northern Ireland conflict, women's uniforms and bodies were an integral part of how they navigated the memories of their participation. Consequently, this fellowship includes a discrete pilot study to explore uniform and bodies in the context of servicewomen in Northern Ireland to try out new creative ways of working with veterans and as a stepping stone to future research. Facilitating a workshop with Northern Ireland veterans, I will encourage them to reflect on their experiences of the 'front line' through their bodies and uniform, using techniques such as body mapping which involves drawing around their own bodies and annotating these drawings with their reflections. From this workshop I will produce a short documentary film which will be screened at the Royal Irish Regiment Museum and the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross Foundation to stimulate public conversation challenging assumptions about the gendered nature of war. Through this fellowship I will be working on publishing a book based on my doctoral research which uses women's voices to tell their own stories of the 'front line' in the 1950s Malaya Emergency, the Troubles in Northern Ireland and in Afghanistan and interwoven with my own personal reflections on military service. The book will examine how the British Army controlled women through the ways in which they were represented in policy, in the media and in private conversations and letters and explores how they were excluded from the mainstream narratives of the conflict. I argue that servicewomen entered into a bargain with the British Army whereby they were co-opted into the military institution whilst simultaneously retaining some agency to resist and subvert. This research raises important questions about the extent of military power, how it is exercised over women and their agency to resist. By questioning whose voices are permitted to narrate war and whose are forgotten, this work challenges how the production of knowledge becomes a tool for military control. This fellowship will establish me as a leading early career researcher by developing my research skills through testing creative methods and completing film-making training which will prepare me for a future early career fellowship or grant. Beyond this postdoctoral fellowship I intend to build on the pilot study to submit an application for a research project entitled: 'Bodies of control: How the British military has used servicewomen's bodies to control their access to the "front line"'.