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

在北爱尔兰冲突的公开报道中，英国女兵基本上是隐形的，即使她们出现，也被认为主要是在远离战斗的地方扮演配角。作为一名退役女军人，我很荣幸能够与许多参加过这场冲突的女退伍军人交谈，她们讲述了在“前线”作战的故事。无论是作为皇家阿尔斯特警察局的女警察，还是作为阿尔斯特防卫团的士兵，女军人夜以继日地外出巡逻，遭到枪击和威胁，尽管在竞选的大部分时间里，她们没有武器，穿着裙子（因为人们认为女性形象不会成为爱尔兰共和军的目标）。相比之下，从事秘密行动的皇家女子军团的女兵是全副武装的，她们的行动受到的限制要少得多。我的研究揭示了由于有关制服和装备的政策决定以及男性同事的所谓保护往往不足，女兵是如何被不必要地置于危险之中的。在我对参加过北爱尔兰冲突的女性退伍军人的采访中，女性的制服和身体是她们如何在参与的记忆中导航的一个组成部分。因此，这项研究包括一项独立的试点研究，在北爱尔兰女兵的背景下探索制服和身体，以尝试与退伍军人合作的新的创造性方式，并作为未来研究的垫脚石。我将为北爱尔兰退伍军人举办一个讲习班，鼓励他们通过自己的身体和制服反思他们在“前线”的经历，使用身体映射等技术，包括在自己的身体周围画画，并用自己的倒影在这些画上注释。在这次研讨会上，我将制作一部简短的纪录片，将在皇家爱尔兰军团博物馆和皇家阿尔斯特警察乔治·克罗斯基金会放映，以激发公众的对话，挑战关于战争性别本质的假设。通过这项奖学金，我将根据我的博士研究出版一本书，这本书用女性的声音讲述了她们自己在20世纪50年代马来亚紧急情况、北爱尔兰和阿富汗问题等“前线”的故事，并与我个人对兵役的反思交织在一起。这本书将研究英国军队如何通过在政策、媒体、私人谈话和信件中代表女性的方式来控制女性，并探讨她们是如何被排除在冲突的主流叙述之外的。我认为女兵与英国军队达成了一项协议，即她们被纳入军事机构，同时保留一些抵抗和颠覆的机构。这项研究提出了一些重要的问题，关于军事力量的范围，它是如何对女性和她们的抵抗机构施加影响的。通过质疑谁的声音被允许讲述战争，谁的声音被遗忘，这个作品挑战了知识的生产如何成为军事控制的工具。这项奖学金将通过测试创造性方法和完成电影制作培训来发展我的研究技能，为我未来的早期职业奖学金或补助金做好准备，从而使我成为一名领先的早期职业研究员。在获得博士后奖学金之后，我打算在试点研究的基础上提交一份研究项目申请，题为“控制身体：英国军方如何利用女兵的身体来控制她们进入“前线””。

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"'.