Description
This paper is an adapted version of text from my at the time of the conference soon-to-be-published monograph on combat cohesion, featuring intensive fieldwork in Ukrainian frontline areas. My work starts with the intent of emphatic research that focalizes the warfighter. I discuss how I managed to gain access by positioning myself proximate to potential research participants – offering up myself as an insider and sharing relevant skills from my career as an active-duty army officer in Sweden. My access came from engaging with warfighters, proving my worth as an insider yet still being an outsider to their chain of command and social settings. This gave me a comparatively easy time to gain trust from potential participants, and highlighted a dynamic in which I as a researcher was not only extracting but ‘earning’ data in exchange for trust by showing my commitment to their cause. I also discuss the ethical implications involved in asking about potentially traumatic experiences, experiences many participants were hoping to never again remember.
