An army of working individualists?

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An army of working individualists?

– A phenomenological interview study of Swedish soldiers going to, working and being in Afghanistan

Emet Brulin

Bachelor thesis in Sociology May 2012

Uppsala University, Department of Sociology Supervisor: Professor Hedvig Ekervald

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the lived life-world of Swedish soldiers that have worked in Afghanistan as part the ISAF mission. It studies the soldiers' experiences by drawing on five qualitative, open interviews and analyses these from a phenomenological perspective. In the thesis some existing research on soldiers is reviewed critically and it is argued that there is a need for an exploratory study of those that execute international peace operations. The analysis of the soldiers' experiences results in a thematic understanding around, first; reasons for going to Afghanistan and how they handle the different life-style and level of control they have on their work and situation. Second, how they perceive their stay in Afghanistan which mostly consists of working, with small possibilities and desire to relax, apart from working out and play games. The third theme concerns perceptions of their bodies, thoughts about being and having been there as well as gender differences. Lastly it is noted that the soldiers hold rather limited experiences of the Afghan people, both the security forces and civilians.

It is also argued that their experiences can be understood in a wider context as, first, a self- realizing job or adventure rather than a vocation, and second as being divided along modern and post-modern logics consisting of different values and regimes of control of the individual.

Key words: Swedish soldiers, phenomenology, Afghanistan, Swedish Armed Forces, qualitative interviewing Nyckelord: Svenska soldater, fenomenologi, Afghanistan, Försvarsmakten, kvalitativa intervjuer

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Section I: Introduction

Sweden has sent men and women around the world to participate in United Nations peace operations since the very outset of their existence, being one of the largest troop contributors during the Cold War and with a politically stated aim of a continuing, and growing commitment to this much debated and intriguing practice. Which is also increasingly being utilized as a tool for foreign policy. Simultaneously the Swedish Armed Forces is in a transition process from a conscript total defence system to a professionalized voluntary force. (Jakobsen 2006; Bergman- Rosamond 2011; Ångström 2010). The changing organization, increased use and also the complexity of international operations put the individuals, soldiers, that make up the armed forces and execute the operations a focal point for reasons concerning their functionality. Due to this, our knowledge about these soldiers mostly comes from utilitarian aimed research in psychology, organization, gender or war studies and is focused on improving the efficiency, capability or health of soldiers, officers and organization. Questions asked in these types of research is; what can be done to motive soldiers to participate? How does one improve interaction between civilian and military parts of both society and during the mission? However interesting these questions and their corresponding answers are, they risk reifying people and treat them solely in their function as soldiers. Put another way, we do seem to sociologically know fairly little about these men and women that are part of society.

This thesis identifies, and takes, a scarcity of critical ethnographical and sociological studies concerning military life as a basis to draw on a phenomenological understanding of the lived experience and the life-world of Swedish soldiers serving in Afghanistan. The phenomenological approach puts emphasis on the lived experience as it is subjectively given to the individual, it provides a gaze that makes one see the experience from the soldiers perspective. In effect this epistemological foundation provides a possibility to go to the soldiers themselves and inquire how it is to be a soldier rather than focus on different predefined aspects or functions of soldiering. The Swedish troop contribution to the UN sanctioned international force in Afghanistan – which is Sweden’s largest ongoing deployment but also one of its most violent and perhaps most controversial ever, and as such unique – and the individuals that serve there can in a way be seen as an international extension of the Swedish society, a situation and place where Swedes chooses to live under different or extreme conditions, of which we know far too little. In this thesis I aim to shift focus concerning these Swedish men and women, away from their roles as soldiers and instead try to study their personal experiences as individuals in society.

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Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a critical¹ account and analysis of Swedish soldiers'² experiences of serving in Afghanistan. The study has an exploratory and retrospective design, aiming to describe and interpret the soldiers' experience of going to Afghanistan, serving and coming back home as a veterans broadly. To do this, open interviews and a phenomenological approach are used. The findings will be related to existing literature on soldiers and armed forces.

The analysis also aims to putting forward interpretations of how the soldiers' experiences can be structured and understood in a wider context.

Disposition

The thesis is divided in to five main sections, this introduction being the first. The second section first outlines the historical context of the Swedish Armed Forces and then goes on to provide and discuss the theoretical and epistemological framework – phenomenology – that will be applied in the analysis. It ends with an exposition and discussion of some existing research on soldiers and armed forces. The third section outlines the research strategy both theoretical and how it was conducted: interviews with former soldiers. The fourth section is the main part of the thesis and consists of the presentation and analysis of the narratives of the soldiers' lifeworlds such as they were presented in the interviews. The fifth, and last, section discusses main points and findings in the analysis and relates these to some existing research.

1 Critical theory, neither in a broad understanding nor as strictly related to the Frankfurt School, is something that will not have a prominent role in the thesis, rather it epitomizes a mindset that have inspired the focus and design of the study. There exists a need for critical research that aims, in the words of Horkheimer, “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Quoted in Bohman 2012). In this context, perhaps the function of soldiering can be such a circumstance.

2 Since this thesis is aimed at studying soldiers but not explicitly as soldiers the use of the word soldier is of course loaded with meaning and to some extant problematic. However, it is as due to their work as soldiers that this thesis, and I, am interested in these individuals.

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Section II: Points of departure

This section will contextualize and provide a background to the thesis. First, I will briefly put the Swedish Armed Forces contributions to peace operations and the mission to Afghanistan in a short historical context. Secondly, I will discuss some of the existing empirical research that is relevant to this thesis and thirdly I will sketch an epistemological theoretical understanding that will be used in the analysis of the life-world of the Swedish soldiers.

Historical context

Sweden’s first military contingent in an international peace operation was deployed in 1956 to Egypt – even though Swedish military observers had been sent to Gaza as early as 1948; this was also the first time that a peacekeeping operation was initiated under the auspices of UN³. During the Cold War Sweden was one of the major troop contributors, and together with the other Nordic states formed a special “Nordic model” of peace operations. (Eknes 1995, 65) After the end of the Cold War deadlock of the UN Security Council in 1987 peace operations moved from the fringes of the international community’s security policy to the centre, the numbers of operations increased and the nature of them are often argued to have became more complex and demanding. This change can be, and often is, illustrated and related to the report An Agenda for Peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping written by the UN Secretary General in 1992.

(Jakobsen 2006, 1–5, 11–3, 46–7)The classical Cold War peacekeeping was guided by a “holy trinity of consent, impartiality and the minimum use of force” (Higate and Henry 2009, 9) and was mostly undertaken under the chapter VI of the UN charter – or chapter VI1 as it informally is called. The peace operations of the early 1990s are often said to have been characterized by optimism and hope for a new more humane world. The increased ambition, size and numbers of operations have lead researchers to talk of different generations of peace operations: the first generation during the Cold War, the subsequent second, third and sometimes fourth generations since then. Jakobsen criticizes the notion of generations, not because important changes have not occurred but since likenesses are hidden using the metaphor of ‘generations’. (2006, 6, 46ff). An example of a more offensive operation in which Sweden participated is the so called Congo crises (1960-64), in which Swedish soldiers participated as a more or less a combating part. (See various contributions in: Huldt, Welin, and Örn 1995; Viktorin 2008, 63) In sum, though, one could say that from the operations on the Balkans in the 1990s the Swedish contributions, along with international trends, have been more robust, more heavily armed and instead of conducted

3 This section draws on, with modifications, my thesis Legitimizing intervention. (Brulin 2012, 6–7)

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under the auspices of UN have been conducted through other international organizations such as NATO, EU or OSCE. (Anthonsen 2003; Johansson 2001; Jakobsen 2006). The Swedish Armed Forces are currently also in a transition process from a large “total defence” conscription army to a professionalized operational defence with standing units and employed soldiers, which is also reflected in the interviews (For a short discussion see Hedlund 2011a). Sweden's long and strong tradition of peacekeeping and relation to the UN both have a strong political and public support. But the ideas of Sweden as a country that has been at peace for two centuries and as a peace-loving nation – as the UN charter preamble reads – is also very present. Politically, international operations are now a stated main task of the Swedish armed forces and the engagement benefits from broad public and elitist support, even though the operation in Afghanistan surely has gained more public and elitist critique then most other operations.

(Anthonsen 2003, 171, 186f; Bergman-Rosamond 2011)

On an international, scholarly level the nature and intent of international operations have been the focus of intense debate; whether they are an example of neo-colonialist politics, a disciplinary practice aimed at further neoliberal values and rationalities, and the more concrete consequences on the ground for the “host” nations and people have also been discussed. (For overviews of these debates: Zanotti 2011; Higate and Henry 2009). These are both interesting and important debates, however, this thesis will not address them further since the focus here is the individuals and society rather the are the operations as such. A UN and peace operations related document that has had profound impact on both debate and practice is the Security Council resolution 1325, from year 2000, where a gender sensitive approach to conflict resolution is outlined and stressed. This document has had an impact on how soldiers behave and how they are deployed. (cf. Persson 2011; Ivarsson 2004)

The US and coalition war in Afghanistan and the subsequent UN authorized international security force (IASF) began in 2001. Sweden first contributed with only a handful special forces troops but the contribution was later expanded and from 2006 a major enlargement was put in place. The number of troops varies but a benchmark for the last years is around 500. From 2006 Sweden has the responsibility for a “Provincial Reconstruction Team” in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan, a relatively peaceful area. From 2012 a reduction of troops is taking place, and a civilian led “Transitional Support Team” is to be employed instead. The Swedish forces are mostly based on Camp Northen Lights in Mazar-e Sherif and on various “Provincial Offices”

(Försvarsmakten; Sverige i Afghanistan)

The mission in Afghanistan definitely differs from other operations Sweden has participated in during the last sixty years in some important ways. For example the level of

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violence and instead of being a neutral participant actively taking part in an armed conflict. But the contribution is done in the context of a UN mandate and in the light of the experience, or inexperience, from previous international missions. The operation is also led and “owned” by NATO but Sweden has contributed and cooperated with NATO-operations and NATOs Partnership for Peace on a long number of accessions and for a long time, in that sense it is part of a general trend. So even though one can debate the rightfulness of the ISAF operation and the Swedish contribution – if it is indeed an international peace operation or if it is an outright war and the role and function of it's civilian state building capacity – it is fruitful to see it as another example of international peace operations that Sweden participates in for surely diverse set of reasons. (Cf. Brulin 2012; Ångström 2010). Discussions on this level is of course important but they also risk missing the perspective of those that execute the operations and thereby reify them in their functions as soldiers. Next, an epistemological and theoretical perspective aimed at refuting that risk is presented and discussed.

Towards a theoretical understanding

So, how does one give a scientifically valid account of another being’s subjective experiences and impressions and, moreover, make that account relate to a higher degree of abstractness and thereby enable enhanced understanding of societal occurrences? Moreover, what do these experiences and impressions consist of? Within the social sciences and humanities the theoretical answers to these conundrums are numerous, and many of them build on the philosophical tradition of phenomenology and especially on the work of Edmund Husserl who could be argued to represent the most subjectively directed philosophy or theory. (Aspers 2001, 269). This thesis will, in line with the purpose, try to describe and interpret rather than explain the experiences of soldiers, and use phenomenology as a method or attitude for investigating how rather than why something is experienced the way it is. (Sandberg et al. 2010)

An aim of Husserl's phenomenology is to provide a rigorous method for studying the meaningful world. Different concepts or notions are can be considered as the foundation of phenomenology, and one important is the life-world. This is the world around us, lived and given to us trough our experience. It is more than just the physical factuality's around us or the abstract causality that sometimes are thought to put things together. The world is not part of us as subjects nor is it separated from us, instead we are inevitably intertwined with it, perceiving and creating it through our experience. The notion of the life-world is also a base for Hussel's harsh criticism of the empirical sciences and the reduction of experiences to for example pure psychological, biological or sociological factors, or corresponding -ism's as one also might put it.

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Instead Husserl wants to put the lived experience as the foundation for a rigorous science which does not risk loosing its connection to the individuals it is studying. (Bengtsson 1998, 18–28) This also makes up the ground for my critique in the following discussion of existing literature on soldiers.

That notion of life-world in the context of this study means that we should consider things, feelings, bodies, experiences, and other items as they appear to us in the natural attitude of the interviewees. We can access this attitude through the phenomenological reduction or epoché; putting brackets on our preconceived understanding of the world and only see it for what it is – as essential experience. The life-world is thus pre-theoretical or pre-reflexive whereas our attitude in reaching it has to be reflexive and critical. (Ruin 2011; Englander and Robinson 2007) The life- world can also be understood to have inner and outer horizons. The inner horizon encompasses the meaningful objects that our consciousness is immediately directed at in their totality. Outer horizons of meaning designate, correspondingly, the larger picture or the whole world. (Aspers 2001, 272)

Considered in the context of this thesis the life-world is the accumulated experiences that the interviewees have of being in Afghanistan and of which I try to reach an understanding through the interviews and then pass on in accumulated form through the text below. According to the phenomenological method I should aim at being a “disinterested spectator” (Husserl, quoted in Aspers 2001, 273) and apply the reduction or epoché that is supposed to give the researcher a privileged position and gain access to the phenomena as purely as possibly. Even though this surely is desirable, I argue, that conducting of the epoché doesn’t solve the problem of giving a pure or direct account of another beings experience of the life-world or phenomenon since bracketing away my knowledge seems futile. Rather, I would argue that it is more fruitful and honest to assert that all knowledge is indeed situated knowledge.

In the essay “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of a partial perspective” (1988) Donna Haraway argues that it is unavailing to search for a neutral position where one sees everything without self being seen or affecting the knowledge production one is involved in. Haraway calls this “the god trick”, disqualifying the idea that such a move is possible. Instead, Haraway argues, we should acknowledge that knowledge is situated and use that as an advantage. Haraway writes within a feminist science studies discourse and her idea of situatedness is perhaps mostly focused towards gender, race and class. In addition to this Haraway's notion is valid when it is used to criticize the notion that it is possible to “bracket away” the researcher's intellectual knowledge and perspective such as it seems to be envisioned by phenomenology. Instead I wish to follow Bruno Latours notion that everything is indeed relevant

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data when retracing the tracks of the soldiers perceptions and experiences. (Latour, quoted in Kvale and Brinkmann 2009, 291).

After this rather theoretical discussion of phenomenology it is time to go back and think about how it can be helpful to solve the conundrum above; how does one give a scientific valid account of another persons experiences and relate these to theoretical understandings without distorting them? My answer will be based on the discussion of phenomenology above, recognizing the problem with Haraways god trick. Patrik Aspers (2001; 2010) has developed an empirical phenomenology by mainly drawing on the work of Husserl and Alfred Schütz. Aspers empirical phenomenology uses a distinction between first and second order constructs; first order constructs are how the interviewees in their everyday life-world understand and make sense of their meaning saturated being whereas second order constructs are how I as researcher understand and interpret these understandings. The logic that informs Aspers also inspires the anthropologist Clifford Geertz' “Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture”

(1973), where he outlines and motivates how and why it is possible and necessary to study individuals' understanding of their social context or culture. In the analysis below Max Weber's notion of ideal-type concepts as “one-sided accentuation” of findings (Weber 1949, 90), on the level of second order constructs, is also applied.

I wish to study that which appears as meaningful in the life-world of the soldiers. I do this by separating their construction of reality and my interpretations of these understandings. To motivate such a naïve approach I will in the next section argue that the existing studies of soldiers have, echoing Husserl, lost contact with their focus of study; the life-world.

Empirical research

The following paragraphs will provide an overview of some existing research on military personnel, serving, or working in relation to international peace operations. It is important to note that there might be important empirical differences between the study of peacekeepers and that of soldiers serving in Afghanistan, as also noted above about the nature of the operation. I have focused mostly on research from a Swedish context due to the limited resources and aim of this thesis, but international research shows a similar pattern; the number of studies on system/meta-level far outranges the number of studies focusing on soldiers with a critical theoretical stance and with ethnographic methods. Those that exist seem to be written within a

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psychometric paradigm, or to focus on other things than the soldiers that conduct peace operations and their perspective⁴.

In a Swedish context the National Defence College [Försvarshögskolan] conducts research concerning soldiers in a psychological, mostly in a non-critical way, that is of interest to this thesis.⁵ In her doctoral dissertation The UNknown soldier: A portrait of the Swedish soldier at the threshold of the 21^st century Eva Johansson (2001) studies what it means to be a peacekeeper in the Balkans in the 1990s. Using questionnaires with both fixed and open ended question as well as more ethnographical methods Johansson mostly uses a descriptive approach but also provides results that are aimed to be used to improve the capability of peacekeeping. Johanssons results are focused on usability rather than understanding and concerns factors such as: motivations to enlist (see more below), creating a model for understanding experiences and stress, approaches to military leadership and different type of peacekeepers (combat soldiers or armed diplomats).

(Johansson 2001). A number of publications and reports emerging from the Defence College is focused on risk and leadership. i.e. Risk, risk communication and military leadership (Börjesson, Lajksjö, and Enander 2007), which is a literature study focusing on international research from the psychometrical perspective on individual risk perception, risk-taking propensity and communication in leadership. They have also produced a summary over four different empirical studies where they focus on risk and safety attitudes within the Swedish armed forces by conducting quantitative questionnaire studies on conscripts, veterans from international peace operations and from specialist officers (Börjesson and Enander 2011). In the same context several other reports have been produced regarding Swedish officers experiences of for example moral dilemmas and ethical decision-making, trust during stressful conditions, ethnocentrical conceptions, how improvised explosive devises (IED) affect leadership, trust and motivation⁶.

Erik Hedlund, also publishing in the context of the national defence college, has studied what motivates Swedish peacekeepers and how they articulate their self-images. (Hedlund 2011b;

Hedlund 2011a) Hedlund studies how soldiers motivate their participation in peacekeeping operations and how they conceive themselves against the backdrop of a transformed system of recruitment for the Armed Forces. This is done through qualitative interviews and is related to broader social science studies and military sociology. We will return to the question of motives for below.

4 For overviews of etnhographical and critical studies see (Viktorin 2008; Higate and Henry 2009; Zanotti 2011;

Ben-Ari 1998) The system/meta-level studies of armed forces, war is far to extensive to be reviewed here.

5 Some of this research might be financed by the Swedish Armed Forces but the College is an independent institution.

6 See the Nation Defence College's homepage (www.fhs.se) for an updated list of publications.

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However interesting the results of these studies are for a decision maker, the Armed Forces, a psychologist or officer recruiting, training or analysing the effectivity of soldiers or developing tactics of peace operations, they do not generally take a critical stance or analyse the meaning, role or experience of soldiers in a sociological fashion. There is however a few examples of studies with a more critical approach that is related to the aim of this thesis. An example is Mattias Viktorins (2008) dissertation Exercising Peace: Conflict preventionism, Neoliberalism and the new military. In this anthropological study Viktorin follows the planning, execution and evaluation of a major international civil-military exercise conducted in Sweden. It studies the intersection of militarism and humanitarianism on a meta-level and the practises of high ranking officers and how they work with and construct notions of peace and conflicts, which is intriguing but does not investigate how such operations are conducted in the field abroad by soldiers.

Studying gender relations within and in relation to the Armed Forces is an emerging focus that is more generally critical. Fia Sundevall studies, in her dissertation The last male bastion in the labour market: gender and military work in Sweden 1865-1989 (2011) (my translation) the process of how the Swedish military was finally opened to women from an economic-historical perspective. Where Sundevall's study ends in time several different researchers have commenced their work and discussed the implementation and consequences of this change.⁷ One example of such a gender focused study is Alma Perssons dissertation (2011) where she, among other approaches, uses ethnographical methods and participating observation in her substudy (Persson 2010) of a combat unit’s final training before being deployed in an international peace operation. Persson draws on gender studies and the implementation of UNSCR 1325 on women and war and how it has generated unexpected consequences for the servicemen (and women). Three aspects are discussed; first the taken for granted norm of soldiers as men and the organization as consisting of only men, secondly, the stereotype-isation of gender relations and thirdly the practice of gendered resources.

Another field that is relevant to the studying of soldiers is military sociology, a popular introduction is Military sociology: an introduction (my translation) (Kernic, Tawaefi, and Ydén 2010) This outlines the contours and general questions of the field. However diverse this field is some trends and questions it has been concerned with are the relation between armed forces and civilian society, how the nature of war has transformed and what the role and task of both the officer and the soldiers is in these processes and convergences. From the strong connection of modern society and its large conscript armies to professionalized “late modern” army and post- cold war “postmodern” army with more diverse tasks and organization (Moskos 2000). A much

7 See Sundevall (2011, 18, 217–218) for an overview.

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debated concern in this field is also the nature of military personnel; warrior, bureaucrat and the professionalisation and civilizationing of the forces and its personnel and the tensions between the different conceptualizations this roles and culture causes. (Kernic, Tawaefi, and Ydén 2010;

Ben-Ari 1998, 15ff; Winslow 1997, 11–32) In the final section, the discussion of the finding from the empirical study some of these questions will be returned to.

A popular book that isconcerned with the Swedish soldiers is Joanne Hildebrandt’s (2012) journalistic and personal book Warriors: a personal reportage on the Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan (my translation) in which she follows soldiers serving in Afghanistan for several months. It is more focused on action packed episodes and portrays the soldiers experiences as filled with shooting and action. This is not a scientific study, and should not be treated as such, but is important in the light of the interviews, as we will see below.

It is against the research background sketched here that this thesis braces. Both through criticising it, in line with Husserl, for risking to lose contact with the individuals that make up the Armed Forces and execute the operations, but also by relating some findings in later sections of the thesis.

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Section III: Towards a research design, and approach of interviewing

Considering what we learned in the discussion about the phenomenological philosophy and successive scientific theories and methods this thesis is focused on the lived experience of soldiers and how these experiences are meaningful to them. But how does one, as a researcher, get hold of narratives of lived life-worlds? I this section I discuss research design, theoretical approaches to interviewing and how I did it.

Theorizing the interview

Margery B. Franklin (1997) proposes a typology of three different models of interviewing, where the first is the traditional, positivistic, approach of “information extraction” (1997, 100) which focuses on constructing neutral knowledge trough asking systematic questions and bracket the very existence of the researcher. Moving away from – in this context problematic – methodology the second, “shared understanding” model designates an approach of semi-structured interview guide, freedom to spontaneously pursue new thoughts and lines of reasoning in the interview, open-mindedness, continuously analysing and discussing the answers with the interviewee. The aim of this model is, according to Franklin, to gain nuanced and rich narratives of the life-world of the interviewee. (1997, 102f) This approach is similar to what Steinar Kvale names “life-world interview”, and what happens between the two people, in the “inter view” to borrow from Kvale.

(Kvale and Brinkmann 2009). Franklins third model is the “discourse model”, where the narratives that are told are seen as socially situated speech, considering interviewing as a discursive speech event (1997, 104f). I interpret Franklin as moving from a more methodological individualism of the shared understanding model, emphasizing the context and the perceptions that the individuals (both interviewer and interviewee) exists within, to a collective – social – context of the discourse model. The text that is produced in that model can then be understood as an expression of a social/societal discourse rather than a way to access the lived experience of an individual in the sheered understanding model, which is similar to the approach of this thesis.

Franklins typology, and discussion, does of course not cover all forms of interviewing but I find it useful as an insightful and sympathetic guide the vast literature on interviews. Moreover so since interview literature does not offer much in the way of concrete guidelines for orchestrating an interview. Kvale offers some tips on how to conduct an interview but mostly he is frank enough to conclude that the practise of interviewing should be considered as a craftsmanship and thereby best be learned by practice. (2009, 33, 139). My process prior to conducting interviews, as a quest to imbibe some practical knowledge and prepare for the

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interviews consisted of reading different textbooks on interviewing and talking to people with experience of interviewing. In this process an interesting insight emerged; that the practical side of interviewing, the handicraft as it were, is black boxed⁸. The bulk of the textbooks discuss how to “get to the field”, ethical questions, how to transcribe the material and most importantly different theoretical understandings (both on ontological and epistemological level). Even though these questions are important and fascinating I would argue that no theoretical stringency could make up for a badly conducted interview – a stiff or awkward personal meeting. In lack of better guidance, experience and in line with the both the phenomenological approach and Franklins shared understanding model I aimed at creating an interview situation that was both open and reassembling an ordinary conversation between two people – hoping to make it comfortable.

In doing so I also tried to move away from the both the idea and the practise of the so- called semi-structured interview to be able to let the soldiers describe their life-world as freely as possible. However non-structured the intentions of the interviewer are the interview situation is structured by the interviewer and in that way the life-world of the interviewee will be structured and mediated by the preconceptions of the interviewer. In that way one can surely say that there exists no non-mediated description of the life-world, it is situated as Haraway puts it.

Getting to the, ethical, interview

After deciding to study the intriguing life-world of the Swedish soldier I faced the problem of getting in contact with individuals that were willing to participate and suitable for the study. In the following I will explain the process that led to the interviews and how these where conducted.

To study soldiers that had served in Afghanistan – rather the any other active mission – was a rather easy choice since this is by far the biggest now ongoing mission that Sweden participates in so the number of potential interviewees was large enough to find willing participants. The perhaps most obvious and direct way to access accurate and direct information about how a soldier perceives his natural state in Afghanistan would be to go there and interview, or even participate in the daily life of a number of individuals in the field. This alternative was, for many reasons, not practicable. One could see this as a weakness since the retrospective state could have changed the experience and perception of the interviewees or one can choose to see it as an advantage since it opened up the possibility to talk about how the mission had changed them as persons and how they felt about society’s view of them. Perhaps most importantly, the time that had elapsed between their time on mission and the interview could have given them time to

8 A notion borrowed from Actor Network Theory of, among others, Bruno Latour and Michel Callon. It indicates a part of a system which, when it works well, is assumed to not affect anything but rather just transfer something, but one it breaks appears as vital. For a short discussion see (Kvale and Brinkmann 2009, 291f).

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reflect on their experience. It is also in line with the practise of seeing former soldiers as lifelong veterans.

I got in contact with the former soldiers in different ways and trough different channels, through asking friends and family – some of which had themselves a background from international service or the Armed Forces – if they knew people that had the relevant experience and would be willing to participate. When I got a name or address from someone to a person that was, or could be, interested I sent an email (see appendix) introducing myself, the project and asserted that they would be anonymous. After this step usually several emails, text messages or phone-calls where exchanged to discuss the form and time of the interview. Interesting to note was that no one that I approached declined to be interviewed – everyone was more than willing to participate and seemed happy that someone was interested in their experience.

The process of recruiting interviewees were thus informed by a method of convenience.

The restrictions were that the prospective interviewees should have served in Afghanistan as soldiers. The process took a couple of weeks and during this time I missed some interview opportunities due to scheduling problems and a will from my side of not only interviewing people living and working in the area of Uppsala-Stockholm since the demographical situation might have affected who was interviewed and potentially made the narratives more uniform. My preferred choice was to conduct the interviews on a person-to-person base, but for practical, geographical reasons three out of five interviews were conducted over Skype – an Internet based voice and video transmitting service – and the remaining interviews made face to face.

Steinar Kvale (2009, 77–96) discusses how to conduct ethical interviewing as an approach and mindset rather than as a set of formal rules, to be honest during the research process and do justice to the persons that give of their life and time, something that I to the best of my ability have tried to adhere to. Further to that, some important rules where considered, first that the interviewees had relevant information and in an informed way agreed to be interviewed and recorded. Second, that their identities are protected and that only I have access to the full interview material and can connect their full opinions and experiences and when and how they served.⁹ These measures where deemed necessary due to the somewhat sensitive nature of the subjects discussed. On the other hand, and considering Kvales third rule regarding consequences for the interviewees. They themselves seemed rather indifferent to my assertions and were mostly happy to participate and tell their stories even though some indication of worry of being misquoted was aired.

9 This is something that has consequences on the subsequent presentation since I, in dialog with my supervisor, decided not to reveal from which interview each quote derives.

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Conducting the interviews

Echoing the discussion above about theoretical understandings of interviews and the theoretical background of phenomenology’s concepts of life-world and the natural attitude, I wanted to conduct the interviews as openly as possible. I was interested in hearing the interviewee’s experiences and not make them talk about what I was interested in hearing. However, to have some starting points I had jotted down notes on themes that might be interesting to discuss¹⁰, but my ambition was to follow the interviewees in their stories and try to make the interview similar to a normal conversation. In my opinion this went rather well with the first interview, which took place in group-room in a library, face to face, and was recorded with a digital Dictaphone. The following three interviews were conducted over Skype and did, probably because of that, more come to resemble a question-answer interview than a free flowing conversation. Unfortunately the video transmission did not work, perhaps because of the freeware program I used to record the interviews. It is still important to point out that I remained with my ambition of asking open- ended question and follow the interviewee by asking follow up questions rather than breaking in with a completely new area whenever a subject was emptied. This approach also resulted in that what was discussed in one interview might not have been touched upon in another and that subjects that I was interested in, such as those I had jotted down, did not get covered. But on the other hand it hopefully made the interviewees feel that they were also in control and could tell what was most interesting and important to them. This was also reflected when I, in the later part of the interviews, asked if they had something more they wanted to tell and they all really got started and talked, apparently they were eager to get their stories told.

At a later state in the research process an additional interview was conducted on a person- to-person base. The reason for this was partly to get a generally broader empirical material but also to check the validity of the Skype-conducted interviews and discuss some preliminary findings and analysis that had been made prior to that interview, in line with Aspers discussion of empirical phenomenology. (cf. Aspers 2010). It was in the beginning conducted similarly – i.e.

openly – as the other ones but towards the end some of my ideas for analysis were discussed. I interpreted no radical differences in the narrative of this interview and those conducted through Skype and the discussion of my analytical ideas were confirmed.

10 These included: “A day”, Relations – friends?, Why?, How does it appear with hindsight?, Home and away, Relaxation – sex and alcohol, Time and space, Body – food and equipment, Risk – violence and death, Afghans.

And in addition, asking about what was the most boring, funniest, scariest and proudest moments. These words and notions were written on a peace of paper in a way similar to a mind-map. For an interesting discussion of graphical interviewing guide see (Aspers 2010)

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Interviewees

Without revealing the exact mission numbers or period of service, interviewees was in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2011. Positions included were interpreter, rifleman, guard, driver, and commander of a logistics squad. The interviewees were 22, 23, 23, 24 and 28 years old at the time of the interviews. All interviewees had done their national service in the army. Four of the interviewees were male and one was female. All interviewees appeared to be of Swedish origin, holding traditional Swedish names and talking without accent. One interviewee came from the Stockholm area, one from Gothenburg, three form villages and/or medium size towns. Three were now studying, one worked at an office job, one was an employed soldier. One had prior to the mission in Afghanistan served as a contracted soldier with the Armed Forces, one had previously served on a military mission to Kosovo.

From utterances to meaning and synthesize through text

After the first round of four interviews were conducted I transcribed the material with the help of the transcription support program “f4/f5”. The additional, last, interview was not transcribed in full length, instead I listened to it and took notes on the content, due to limited time and a perception that it confirmed the narratives from the other interviews and thereby also pointing to a saturation of the material. All interviews were conducted and transcribed in Swedish and the quotes below are translated by me. The analysis began already during the interview but was formalized when I read the texts, making notes both in the margin of the text and on a larger paper. In the beginning this was done in a rather chaotic way but after a while when patterns started to emerge, categories and subjects became more and more stringent as I sorted the notes accordingly. This was however not a formal coding process, similar to the process of Grounded Theory for example. In my process I focused on the lived experience of the interviewees. The process consisted of different phases such as creating mind-map's focused around concepts or organizing the notes in according with different themes. After a while I realised that some of these concepts – discussed below – were emerging second order constructs and then the process shifted focus to question these concepts and try to focus on other concepts or themes, this was of course done to create as robust interpretations and analysis as possible.

To explain this interpretation process Haraways concept of situated knowledge (discussed above) is helpful. In line with Husserls phenomenology I did my best to bracket my own understanding and preconceived ideas and try to let the interviewees life-world or first order construction guide and permeate the analysis and the account but it is indeed through my situated knowledge that it is strained, and as such it is unique.

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Section IV: Emerging life-worlds of Swedish Afghanistan soldiers

In the following section I will, by drawing on the phenomenological epistemological foundation, give an account of the life-world of the interviewees and analyse their narratives. Their descriptions exist on the level of first order construct in accordance with the theoretical discussion above whereas my analysis will abstract them to a level of second order constructs.

The first, and main purpose of this section is to present the soldiers' experiences from Afghanistan structured in three themes that emerged during my repeated and thorough readings of the interviews. These themes and an additional discussion of experience of encounters with the Afghan people and security forces will structure the following section.

Secondly, this presentation also aims to show that the experience of the soldiers can be understood as structured by two logics and in addition that the soldiers themselves don't seem to regard their mission as something extraordinary but rather as work or other normal activity, something that they might do one or several times as it suits their life and plans in general. This can be interpreted in different ways, for example as being in line with general Swedish and international policy, but can never the less be an interesting point of view when sociologically analysing peacekeepers and their mission. To be deployed on a mission and being in the Armed Forces can also be understood in accordance with two different logics, which I call a modern logic, denoting values and mechanism such as: Obeying orders, control, discipline, putting the self aside, hierarchic organization, not questioning. The second is a post-modern logic denoting:

Individuality, question the meaning of tasks and missions, self-realization, adventure, a chaotic and continuous working regime. These logics and values, as ideal-type concepts (cf. Weber 1949, 90), are intertwined in the narratives of the soldiers life-worlds and my analysis of them originates from the interviews rather than from theoretical deduction. These concepts and logics do not as such exists in the life-world of the soldiers, nor are they the only concepts that can help interpret how Swedish soldiers make sense of their experiences but they provide valuable points of references to structure and further understand the experiences and values present in the interviews.

Since the aim of this thesis is to broadly study the individuals' experiences of being a soldier in Afghanistan it does not make explicit theoretical analysis of the either the themes nor the two logics systematically. The different themes and logics are parts of vast theoretical discussions within diverse set of social sciences, and the limited scope of this thesis could only make a limited intervention in these debates.

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Gateways to the experience

The first part of the analysis will focus on themes that can be seen as gateways to the experience of being a soldier in the Swedish army deployed to Afghanistan. In other words, why they went there and how they generally handled and viewed the experience.

Why or why not?

The interviewees discussed different reasons for going to Afghanistan. They both discussed personal reasons and reasons they perceived other soldiers to hold. Reasons for going to Afghanistan are naturally multilayered but some trends can be identified in the interviews, such as individualistic or altruistic reasons. This is also a subject that has been debated when discussing the transition process of the purpose and organization of Armed Forces generally, something we will return to below.

When discussing the broader meaning with the mission one interviewee says; “Everything is meaningless and shit. But most people are there to make money, do something exciting and get fit”¹¹. Other reasons that were expressed were “experiences of working in the developing world”,

“adventure”, “change the world”, “make a difference”, “see/learn another culture”, “experience a historical happening”, “learn the language” and be part of a tight unit and experience comradeship. This can be said to change when they come to Afghanistan since they then seem regard their activities as just plain work. More altruistic reasons such as helping Afghanistan or changing the world were less emphasised than those that focused on individual experience but were also expressed. One interviewee emphasised that the UN per se and the UN mandate was important in his/her decision to go. The soldiers that had previously worked or were working in the army also expressed that it was a natural step after years of training, a kind of promotion or something that the unit they had served with did together, or as one of them expressed it:

You got to do something that you've been training on for years and finally you get to play the game. Make it real. It was probably the main reason. And then, it's obviously a cliché answer, but changing the world, but I saw that mostly as a bonus

The most frequent reasons the soldiers gave for signing up and going to Afghanistan were largely individualistic or aimed at transforming or doing good in the world, but nevertheless based on

11 In the following account all quotes, either in quotation marks [“”] or in indentation, are from the interviews conducted in this study if nothing else is explicitly indicated. All quotes are translated by the author from the transcripts, that are in my possession. As discussed above they are made anonymous just as the gender of soldiers are made untraceable by changing relevant he/she to s/he everywhere were the sex of the interviewee is not necessary to understand the narrative.

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their individual perceptions – as apposed to a feeling of duty, honour or nationalism or other grander narrative such as global justice or democracy.

Simultaneously a frustration with how the mission in Afghanistan is understood in Sweden and a perception of personally being questioned by people or media in Sweden because of the legitimacy, aim or other political reasons was also aired. The interviewees described how they felt that this controversy didn’t concern them, instead politicians were responsible for why Sweden and they were in Afghanistan. The interviewees were only responsible to answer why they personally went to Afghanistan. This is also interesting in relation to the book Krigare [Warriors], (Hildebrandt 2012) which was mentioned and discussed several times by the interviewees in relation to the feeling of being questioned or misunderstood in the public debate. Hildebrandt makes, among other things, the argument that the soldiers in Afghanistan don't get the support they deserve, are personally criticized and that the media are not covering their work and risk- taking appropriately. Since the interviewees expressed little personal experience of being questioned or criticized, the experiences they aired seemed rather to exist on a more abstract level, coming perhaps from a shared idea in their common life-world and not as conversations of criticism they themselves had been part of.

In the scholarly debates about why individuals – Swedes – voluntarily seek international service within a peacekeeping mission the answers are pointing in directions similar to the ones expressed in these interviews. Eva Johansson (2001, 53 & “Paper 3”) finds through a method of quantitative analysis that motives mainly can be understood to be “Military Challenge, Private Economy, Sensation Seeking and Altruism”. Erik Hedlund (2011b) refines existing typologies and organizes motives in three broad categories, through qualitative analysis; modern, palemodern and postmodern. He also notes that motives can be understood by two dichotomies;

materiality/immateriality and self-oriented/other-oriented. Hedlunds analysis concludes that the Swedish peacekeeping soldiers' motives are mostly post-modern in the sense that they are frequently focused on self-realization. What can be deduced from the interviews in this study is perhaps mostly a support for the notion of post-modern or self-oriented motives for serving, but one can also consider if this is the right way to pose the question of why in the first place. Rather than putting emphasis on self-/other-oriented or material/immaterial motives, working in Afghanistan could be seen as an ordinary job or general activity motivation and less in a utilitarian way. When discussing questions of motivation in the interviews the soldiers answered rather dutifully and some even stated that it was a repetitive question that they were forced to consider, sometimes even by the Armed Forces. Through these discussions and other parts of the interviews the impression emerged that the first level construct of way the soldiers choose to go

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to Afghanistan is that it is a natural step, nothing that needs special motivation. More like a job, an extended trip, an education or whatever else young people do with their time. This is also emblematic with a notion several of them held, that they were glad they had done it but that they wouldn’t want to do it again, mostly because it took too much time away from other projects or things they wanted to do.

Frustration and meaningful(less)ness

One part of being a soldier in Afghanistan appears to be able to handle frustration. From the interviews two different coping strategies towards this could be identified – i.e. this was nothing that the soldiers themselves expressed as a thoughts but is rather something I have induced or constructed from their experiences. The first was that of criticism, disillusion and distancing oneself, the second was to accept the situation and recognize that this is the “army way”. And here the logics of modernity and post-modernity is worth considering. Both attitudes did also seem to involve some general talking trash of the Armed Forces organization.

The first coping strategy can be illustrated by the following quotation. The interviewee is frustrated by the lack of coordination and meaningful tasks and handles it by working out fiercely. But this experience or construction of the life-world as on unsatisfying and problematic is also intertwined with an expression of satisfaction with other, personal, type job tasks that are perceived as meaningful, that are only partly visible in the quote.

[...] no one that manages to take responsibility and to go into depth with the Afghan counterparts. Everyone just thinks their officers are crap, they don't take responsibility, they are stoned all the time, don't manage to get their soldiers to come on time, can't plan for food or logistics. The problems are identified with their army but there is no one that puts it all together and takes it up with the Afghans, presenting a plan to solve it. Our commanders just thought... it's just crap, but I think we should do like this; we go to this village and to this or that. And I thought, okay!? All the errs are identified but no one takes responsibility, everyone just handle their small tasks instead; get hold of some info, do this or that, get everyone home alive.

EB: How did you handle that?

By working out! I trained a lot of martial arts!

The second coping strategy seems to be to accept the army way and letting someone else worry about the meaningfulness of ones mission and job task. In the quote below a soldier is explaining his/her experience of guarding a remote police state/command and communication post even though the operation for which it was set up never started. S/he accepts the commanding officer's explanation without expressing much annoyance or frustration with the situation:

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We went out there again then after a few weeks, the reason for us being there was that there was a big operation going on in the area. And that there was a need for a [ISAF] command and communication post there, next to where the Afghans had theirs. But the second time [we went there], the operation did not start because it was bad weather. It felt really meaningless that we had been there for a week and a half without anything had happened!

But then our CO [Commanding Officer] came out and talked to us and said that he understood that we felt like we had not solved or achieved anything, but that we had at least showed that even if nothing happens the Swedes are there, that we are doing our part of the deal. Although it never started, we've shown that even if it's muddy, rainy, and piss, we are there anyway. We are there because we have said we will be there. And then you realize, after all, the importance and meaning of it, although it had felt totally useless for over a week.

Often you got an explanation, there was some meaning to it, although it did not always feel that way. [...]

Considering the meaningfulness of the work that the interviewees do in Afghanistan, some ambivalences exist regarding individual specific work-tasks and the a greater perspective of the task and mission of ISAF. On the one hand some think that what they do is rather pointless in relation to the overall situation in the country, but on the other hand they also experience that their work and presence in villages and society make a difference; talking to people and showing that there exists an alternative to the Talibans. The experience of a meaningful time in Afghanistan varies depending on what level one talks about it, everyone asserts that they developed personally and as an individual experience it is described as “developing”,

“interesting”, “learning a lot about myself and others”, whereas, as could be seen above, opinions about the mission as such and how to handle it personally were perhaps more complicated and diverse.

One way to interpret these different levels of understanding and coping strategies is by applying the phenomenological notions of noemata and horizons. According to Husserl the experience is always directed on something, it is intentional and as such creates or can be understood as creating inner and outer horizons of meaning. (Aspers 2001, 272ff). The difference between the meaningfulness of the personal and micro job task such as it is envisioned by the soldiers and detached from the macro level of the mission as a whole becomes more understandable if one considers the personal and micro level as part of the soldiers inner horizon, such meaningful things and experiences that are immediately present, whereas the outer horizon in this context can be understood as the ISAF operation in its entirety. The soldiers are in a sense focusing on different levels when they are coping with or thinking about frustration and meaningfulness.

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Working and being in time and space

One way to capture the experience of being a Swedish soldier in Afghanistan is to understand it as divided in time and space, i.e. work/leisure time and here/there, on/off the base – this is my way to construct second-order understandings of the interviewees experiences.

Work, working out, leisure and (not?) relaxing

I started all the interviews by asking the interviewee about how a day in Afghanistan was. All interviewees first and foremost emphasized work and in a corresponding fashion downplayed the role of leisure-time. When in Afghanistan work seems to be the main activity, and it seems to be just work per se, not a humanitarian vocation to change the world or the individual stimulating adventure that is reflected in the discussion of why the soldiers choose to go to Afghanistan.

Leisure time does not seem to exist as such but is rather immersed in the work, time off is whenever there is no concrete job task to perform. Interesting in this context is also the sliding comprehension of what work and free time are; mending weapons, cars, radios and other material was for example mentioned as activities done when not working. Whereas proper work seemingly composed of guarding the camp, patrolling with Afghanistan National Army (ANA), Afghanistan National Police (ANP) or doing “social patrols”, transporting people or goods, attending meetings or briefings. The only legitimate time for a soldier, as expressed by them, to be off duty and have permission not to carry arms, appears to be when going to the gym, which is also a way to heighten or maintain ones “combat capacity” and as such it is also a part of the job. This continuous on duty condition was of course most manifest for those three interviewees who held positions which included on call duty but was also apparent in the mind-set of those who had the possibility to get frequent time off.

When the soldiers were not working, i.e. when they had an odd, unplanned moment off, and they were not working out, activities available were perhaps not so varied and stimulating.

The feeling of meaningfulness of these activities appears to have varied, but over all watching movies or TV-series, playing board-games or pool, calling home or using the internet was some of the available activities. Soldiers can not, unless they are a certain number of people, leave the base and wander around in the area. One interviewee, stationed in a Provincial Office, described how they used to gather a group of soldiers to leave the base to take a walk to the local bazar and

“stretch their legs”, but even so they came up with a made-up operational aim with the patrol/walk. Others discussing the prospect of leaving the base asserted that there was nothing to see but medieval, brown or grey huts and no shops or other amusements so there was really no point in leaving the base even if it had been allowed or possible.

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In the following quote we can see one opinion about work, leisure time and how to handle the differences between them. This is one of the soldiers that was most positive about off duty activities, on the main camp in Mazar-e Sharif (Camp Northern Lights) rather then on his/her ordinary stationing on a smaller outpost which did not offer the same possibilities. When reading the quote another thing also becomes visible: the focus of the soldiers' ability to work. This interviewee is using the word recuperating when he could just as well use sleep. This might be seen to indicate a natural attitude of viewing oneself in an instrumental way, e.g. s/he is an object that is aimed at working and when not working recuperating so to again be able to work when the next shift starts. In other words, “there was a lot of work to maintain one's own combat capacity”.

The base is a nice place to be at. There is a gym, a cinema and other things to do. We played a lot of board-games when we were there. When we were at Camp Northern Lights we manned the guard. We worked at night, recuperated the first hours in the day, and then we had the evening free. So then we went to the gym and then just to pass time. Either if the cinema was available, call home or spend some time with the computer.

EB: How did you relax, its a rather different environment?

Yes indeed! One surely has to be able to handle ones on and off mode. That when one is on the base and don't have a specific task to perform, then one has to shut down one's soldiering parts and just read a book, rest or call home, be as ordinary as possible really. And then when you move out [from the base], then you turn on your soldiering parts and do what one is taught, it's hard in the beginning but you learn after a while.

Something that can be seen to go against the idea of military work as modern highly regulated practice, rather than postmodern, is that work does seem to be everywhere and almost always.

Weekends as something that divides and make the time go by in intelligible sections of weeks does neither exist nor is something expressed as wanted or necessary by the soldiers.

Another subject I was interested in reviewing was how the soldiers managed to relax or unwind from the surely complex and stressful situations that constitute service in Afghanistan.

When I for example asked, or as the interview touched upon the subject of alcohol as a way to relax, everyone indicated that this was not relevant, partly because of the seriousness of the situation there. Alcohol or drug consumption might be a difficult subject to discuss in an interview but the soldiers did not appear to regard this as an important question or have anything to hide. When working on the main Swedish base in Mazar-e Sherif soldiers can order a maximum of two beers but, as said, this was not something that seemed to be important or done frequently. The interviewees that held positions or were working on smaller camps where consumption was not at all a possibility expressed similar views. It was indicated that staff officers or maintenance personnel consumed alcohol in larger quantities and more often, though

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this view was not shared by the interviewee that worked with transport and logistics. The fact that soldiers in Afghanistan always bear arms was put forward as a reason for an uneasy feeling in relation to alcohol. Instead they mostly talked about relaxation in the manner discussed above concerning work and leisure-time. One interviewee, however, acknowledges that he increased his occasional smoking since he and a friend used to take a cigarette at the end of the day and contemplate that day's events as a way to relax and get a moment off.

On or off the base; spheres of being

Another way to capture what it means to work in Afghanistan as a soldier appears to be to divide it in to different spheres; on the base and off the base. When inside one of the bases in which the Swedish soldiers are stationed – where most personnel spend most of the time according to the interviewees – the soldiers, as we have seen, work with maintenance of either themselves or their equipment. When on the base two different narratives seem to be at work, either it is “to take care of oneself and manage the boredom” or that it is relatively safe and that working or relaxing makes time go by. Leaving the base and going on patrol, transporting goods, attending meetings (as the interpretors do), is generally expressed as something more positive and meaningful; “the patrols came as a gift from the gods”.

However, going outside the base also means being in a more hazardous environment, thus turning on ones soldier attitude and practice what one has learned – as it is described in the quote above. When leaving the base a unit has to include a certain number of personnel and weaponry, this means that those that have supporting jobs sometimes are included just to be able to leave the camp; “Everyone are soldiers down there so we used to take with us mechanics and such folks, people that otherwise never leave the base. […] It's fun to have seen something else than the base after six months there”. But of course leaving the camp also meant risking to get into a violent situation, something that was described as both unnecessary and stupid or thrilling and positive.

Experiences of body, mind and gender

A classical line of division in understanding individuals life’s and experiences is by considering the mind and body as separated entities, often referred to as the Cartesian divide, something which the phenomenological approach tries to bridge through the emphasis of holistic lived experience and critique of psychologism and biologism perspectives. In the following paragraphs however I use these classical divides and the category or construction of gender to highlight some specific experiences.

An army of working individualists?