Description
This paper will investigate how global and regional dynamics of power and histories of conflict have been personalised in the ethics and identities of soldiers who have fought in Afghanistan, comparing those of the British and American militaries. It will seek to explore how these soldiers, themselves shaped by intersectional identities and power structures, have come to view and conceptualise the cultures and motivations of those they fought against in conflicts styled as the redemption of a nation’s honour. This combined historical and anthropological project will use archival data to reconstruct the perspectives of British soldiers who fought in the Anglo-Afghan wars. It will then utilise ethnographic interviews of former American military personnel deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom (2001-2014) and Operation Enduring Sentinel (2014-present). It will explore how a bond of empathy, and even respect, was formed across the frontlines, created by the mutual community of experiencing structural exploitation nested in globalised and localised dynamics of power in a war they fought but had no control over.
