News
Call for Papers: 2024
We are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a proposed Special Issue titled 'Military Families and Martial Politics'. To find out more take a look at this page.
Updates: 20th December 2022
We are pleased to welcome new group member Trish Mazarura who is a social worker and spouse of a Commonwealth veteran. We look forward to hearing more about you research working with you!!
Magnolia Walls: 24th and 26th July 2022
Two of our group members Dr Alice Cree and Dr Hannah West have developed a fantastic play which tells a story about military life by centering spouses. Magnolia Walls moves beyond the Penelope trope, instead portraying a more complex and considered take on military life. It was performed in Newcastle but we hear rumblings about a future tour!!
Group Meeting: 4th April 2022
Today we met to discuss options for further dissemination of our work exploring what critical approaches can help us to discover about military spouses / partners and their relationship with power. We are at the very early stages of thinking about this and hope to share some further detail in due course.
We also talked about the importance of expanding our discussions across international contexts so please do get in contact if you would like to be a part of our network! We welcome researchers at any stage of their careers who are interested in critical approaches (broadly conceived).
New Project: 4th March 2022
Some of our group members are working on a really exciting, and hopefully extremely impactful, project. Watch this space for information about this project which we aim to publish later this year.
Our Group is Growing! 1st February 2022
We have recently been joined by Dr Harriet Gray, Kate Salem, and Emma Senior! Take a look at their profiles to read more about their research on and with military spouses. Welcome to the group!
Report Published: 20th September 2021
We are pleased to announce that some of our group members, with other brilliant colleagues, have published a report outlining their thoughts on conducting research with military spouses. The report covers four themes:
Seeking and Gaining Access to Recruit Military Spouses
Hearing Military Spouses’ Voices through Qualitative Methodologies
Pursuing Impact Agendas: Who, What, Why
Balancing Criticality with Military and Academic Expectations
To read the Bringing the Homefront to the Homefront Report, go to our publications page and follow the link.
Introducing the Rethinking Military Spouses: Critical Research Group: 1st September 2021
Dr Emma Long was invited to contribute a blog to the Veterans and Families Research Hub introducing the Rethinking Military Spouses: Critical Research Group. In the blog, Emma explained the origins of the group:
"As a result of the discussions between myself and colleague Dr Alice Cree (NUAcT Fellow, Newcastle University), in April 2021 we set up a meeting with other early career academics researching military spouses. At this meeting, I was surprised by how excited we all were to have a space dedicated to critical discussions. We valued the opportunity to reflect on the implications that our positionality and research decisions might have upon the ways in which we talk about military spouses, conclusions we can draw, and the different ways impact might be sought. From this first meeting our ‘Rethinking Military Spouses: Critical Research Group’ was born. Our group is focused on developing novel critical insights pertaining to military spouses. It is a collaborative endeavour where activities are driven by members’ research interests."
You can read more here.
Defence Research Network Newsletter and Blog: 9th August 2021
It was great to team up with the Defence Research Network to discuss our research. We are pleased to feature in their latest newsletter dedicated to their month's theme 'military spouses'. We encourage you to give it a read to get to know about some of the recent work on this topic. In particular, we focused on the implications of conducting critical research with military spouses and contributed a blog which you can read here.
Twitter Hour: 14th July 2021
We are pleased to be co-hosting a Twitter Hour on military spouses with the Defence Research Network. Join us between 8-9pm tonight to hear more about research relating to military spouses and partners #DefResChat. For more info take a look at this page.
Webinar Hosted: 9th July 2021
We really enjoyed hosting the webinar and the discussions that followed. At the live discussion event, brilliantly chaired by Dr Nick Caddick, members of our research group and others reflected on our experiences and issues encountered relating to recruitment, methodologies, impact, and criticality. In particular:
Dr Alison Osborne, Hannah West, Dr Emma Long, and Dr Hilary Engward considered: What are the barriers when recruiting participants and how did you overcome them? What are the enduring problems with recruitment and this population? How do our insider/outsider roles affect access?
Dr Donna Crowe-Urbaniak, Dr Alice Cree, Dr Eleonora Natale, and Dr Alison Osborne considered: Why did you choose to conduct your research the way you did? What did you learn? What were / are the implications of these decisions? How do your methods and methodology help you to better understand / disrupt common understandings of the lived experiences of military spouses?
Dr Lauren Godier-McBard, Dr Sergio Catignani, Donna Crowe-Urbaniak, and Dr Hilary Engward considered: Thinking about the implications of your research, who are the beneficiaries? How did you achieve impact? What are the key considerations you have had to make? Challenges you might have encountered practically or due to your own alignment / politics.
Dr Eleonora Natale, Dr Lauren Godier-McBard, Hannah West, and Dr Sergio Catignani considered: What is critical research within this topic / field and what does it mean to you? What are the barriers to conducting critical research - who has power and how is it exercised?
Building from this, we are pleased to be co-hosting a Twitter Hour with the Defence Research Network on Wednesday 14th July 2000-2100. For more information or to get involved take a look at this link. We are also in the process of developing a summary report outlining some of the key discussions arising from this work - we will be announcing its publication late August via Twitter. Do let us know via email (critmilspouse@gmail.com) if you would like to be on this mailing list.
Going Live!! 5th July 2021
We are pleased to release the research videos contributed by academics exploring issues relating to military spouses and partners - click here to see them.
Contributors include many of our early career group members as well as more established researchers within the field. We have really enjoyed collaborating with each other and are excited about the opportunity to discuss our work further at the upcoming live discussion webinar on the 9th July. If you would like to attend this please register through this link.
Webinar Announcement: 9th July 2021
On the 9th July 1300-1430 some of our members are running and contributing to a webinar titled 'Bringing the Homefront to the Forefront: UK perspectives on critical research with military spouses'. See our Events page for more details. Registration is now open - please follow this link.
Second Group Meeting: 10th June 2021
Reflecting on the article 'What is Critical Military Studies' by Victoria Basham, Aaron Belkin and Jess Gifkins, we discussed what critical research means to us and our work with military spouses. We considered the challenges encountered conducting critical research whilst bearing in mind funders' increasing focus on pathways to impact. Through our discussions we found that each of us thinks about criticality in different ways which has different implications for our research approach and anticipated outcomes. We decided to develop a blog which starts to articulate these different approaches - highlighting the spectrum of criticality upon which we are positioned. We will announce this publication via Twitter in due course @criticalspouse.
First Group Meeting: 29th April 2021
We ran our first meeting where we agreed the purpose, aims, and objectives underpinning our research group. Very quickly it became clear to us how much a group focused on critical discussions relating to military spouse research was needed! Attended by early career academics, from a variety of disciplines, some of us also being members of the military community, we discussed the challenges we might encounter whilst conducting our research. In particular, we reflected on the implications that our positionality and research decisions might have upon the ways in which we talk about military spouses, conclusions we can draw, and the different ways impact might be sought. We are excited to explore these themes further and pursue a collaborative approach to raise the profile of critical research relating to military spouses. Watch this space for upcoming events and reflections!