Description
This paper is an examination of how militarization in Edwardian Britain functioned as a form of pedagogy, shaping both moral character and bodily discipline in preparation for war. Drawing on a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys (1908) and the compendium Essays on Duty and Discipline (1910), I analyze how these texts extended military logics of compliance and physical suffering into civilian life starting in childhood, effectively transforming the nation into a site of pre-military training. The disciplining and brutalization of male physicality accompanied its discursive reconstruction as the state’s future war materiel. The analysis draws on Foucault’s concepts of discipline and governmentality, alongside Goffman’s idea of the total institution, to explore how moral instruction and everyday bodily regulation operated together to produce soldier-citizens. By reframing stare control of male physicality and subsequent suffering as moral virtue, Edwardian pedagogies of heroism normalized the militarization and harsh physical disciplining of male youth under the banner of civic duty. The paper contributes to Critical Military Studies and feminist International Relations by revealing how militarization takes root through childhood education, morality, and governance of the male body.
Keywords: Pedagogy; Militarization; Discipline; Masculinity; Heroism; Total Institution; Edwardian Britain; Governmentality
