Description
This paper interrogates the role of performative art in capturing the shifting gender dynamics resulting from integration of women within the armed forces of Western liberal democracies. In particular, we analyse what specific subject-positions are embodied and performed in the plays, how women’s ‘right-to-fight’ aligns with or diverges from the integration of LGBTQ+ soldiers (‘where are the women?’ vs. ‘where are the queers?’), and most importantly, we analyse how theatrical art depicts conflict as the ultimate goal of soldiering. Drawing on our ethnographies of two theatrical performances from the 2019 Army@TheFringe programme (Hallowed Ground – Women Doctors in War and Dead Equal), interviews with artists, Facebook/Twitter feeds, and promotional materials in addition to findings generated as part of the wider research project on military culture in Scotland and Britain more broadly (2017-2019), we argue that although performative art brings gender equality and queer visibility agendas to public attention, its attempt to destabilise traditional heteronormative, patriarchal and violence-prone military culture remains limited due to: 1) a limited range of gendered subject-positions depicted in the plays, 2) the use of traditional gender hierarchies between those serving in Western militaries and the multiple Others, and 3) the decontextualized and depoliticised depiction of conflicts, past and present. These practices transform women and bearers of non-traditional gender/sexual identities into sovereign – patriotic and loyal - subjects committed to the mission of Western liberal - military-assisted - humanitarianism and neoliberal war-making, particularly prominent in the era of the Global War on Terror.
