Our project seeks to make connections between two broad areas of recent research. The last two decades have seen a blossoming of studies of the Cold War that have emphasised its global character and its inseparability from the processes of decolonisation that were proceeding during the same period. This studies have involved new attention to what has been called the transnational or non-national character of liberation movements. Where earlier studies had taken as their frame of reference the struggle of a particular movement rooted in and operating within the boundaries of a particular colonial territory, this more recent work has emphasised the exchanges among colonised states and between them and allies on both sides of the Cold War.
The other body of literature with which we engage is that known as critical military studies, a field that brings the study of armies and soldiers into conversation with theoretical literatures on nationalism, citizenship, and state-making. It has stressed the construction of ‘military masculinities’ in relation to these broader questions, alongside explorations of racial, ethnic and class hierarchies. It has traced the embodied and affective practices and demands of militaries as well. The great bulk of this work has relied on ethnographic and oral historical methodologies, approaches necessary to explore both the ‘lived experiences’ and memories of ordinary soldiers. In all its concerns, critical military scholarship has emphasised the importance of training in the production and contestation of specific ‘military cultures’, adding new dimensions to a more traditional military history concerned with the effects of training on morale and efficacy. Until now, critical military scholarship has been developed on the basis of studies of conventional armies. We will build upon this scholarship by bringing its insights into dialogue with research on the global Cold War and guerrilla liberation armies.
