Doctoral Dissertation Research: Labor and Livelihoods within Militarized Communities

士兵是军事化社区劳动力的重要组成部分。关于士兵工作的人类学理论往往侧重于与影响他们的冲突有关的风险和不确定性，以及对人类经历和社会生活的相关影响。然而，当兵也提供了稳定的工作，并在社区内提供了新的社会关系，这与日常生活的其他方面相抵消。这些社会关系是如何影响当兵体验的？作为一名士兵的日常劳动是否提供了有别于那些与积极冲突相关的体验？这一博士论文项目综合了经济人类学和社会结构人类学的理论，以调查军事经历所固有的稳定与风险之间的紧张关系及其对冲突地区生计的影响。它培训一名在美国的人类学理论和方法研究生，并向学术和非学术受众广泛传播研究成果。具体地说，这个博士论文项目考察了军事化社区中受薪士兵的生活和生计。通过对士兵居住和工作地点的人种学观察和生活史访谈，该项目调查了作为一名士兵如何有助于家务劳动，以及士兵为提高工作表现或逃避日常压力而追求的活动。例如，它询问士兵在军事环境内外的社交网络是否会影响他们对劳动的理解，以及作为一名士兵的劳动反过来如何改变这些网络。通过考虑军事化的社会和经济空间为某些形式的工作和社会关系提供的可能性，该项目不仅为安全研究提供了一种新的方法，还为政治经济学和性别的社会科学研究做出了贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Soldiers are a critical part of the labor force in militarized communities. Anthropological theories about the work of soldiers often focus on the risk and uncertainty associated with conflicts affecting them and the related effects on the human experience and social lives. However, being a soldier also provides stable employment and provides new social relationships within communities that are offset from other aspects of daily life. How do these social relationships affect the experience of being a soldier? Does the everyday labor of being a soldier provide experiences that are distinct from those associated with active conflict? This doctoral dissertation project synthesizes theory from economic anthropology and the anthropology of social structure to investigate the tensions between stability and risk inherent to the military experience and its effects on livelihoods in conflict zones. It trains a U.S.-based graduate student in anthropological theory and methods and involves extensive dissemination of findings for scholarly and non-scholarly audiences. Specifically, this doctoral dissertation project examines the lives and livelihoods of paid soldiers in militarized communities. Through ethnographic observation and life history interviews of soldiers where they reside and work, this project investigates how being a soldier contributes to household labor and the activities that soldiers pursue to enhance their job performance or retreat from daily stressors. It asks whether soldiers’ social networks inside and outside of the military context affect their understandings of labor, for example, and how the labor of being a soldier in turn alters those networks. By considering the way militarized social and economic spaces provide possibilities for certain forms of work and social relationships to be pursued, this project not only provides a novel approach to the study of security, but also contributes to social scientific studies of political economy and gender.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.