Portada/Cover
Abstract
The military is one of the most important state bureaucracies in many contemporary societies. However, although there is a growing academic interest in understanding recent militarisation phenomena in different countries, there is not enough ethnographic research documenting the informal socialisation processes that influence the development of military cultures in specific contexts. As a contribution, this paper contains, on the one hand, a review of academic literature that explores the everyday life of civilian and military members of a state’s armed forces, especially those involved in transitional justice processes, as is currently the case in Colombia. And on the other hand, based on my own ethnographic experience in the Colombian National Army, a methodological reflection on the main challenges that as a civilian researcher I faced during the design of this research, namely: access to military environments and the trust engendered with the participants; and also, on the practical difficulties at the time of implementing its route plan. Keywords Military Forces; Social research; Colombian National Army; Transitional justice; Everyday life.
Author/researcher
Andrés M. F. González-Saiz. BA in Anthropology from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia; MA in Anthropological Research from Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA. Contact: amg474@scarletmail.rutgers.edu
Working Paper 4-2021 CAPAZ (.pdf, in Spanish)
González-Saiz, A.M.F. “Do you consider that your military service was voluntary and heroic?”: methodological challenges in social research within military organisations. Working Paper 4-2021, CAPAZ, Bogotá. April 2021. 34 p. ISSN (online): 2711-0354
(NW: Claudia Maya, from the publication. English: Tiziana Laudato)