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ABSTRACT This article explores the relationships between soldiers, masculinity and the countryside. It draws on a variety of published materials ranging from army recruitment literature to military autobiography. It is located primarily in conceptual frameworks suggested by feminist and rural studies literatures. Following a brief discussion of the historical contribution of the military to ideas of rurality, the relationships between soldiers, masculinity and the countryside are explored. First, the ways in which the army constructs a particular view of the countryside are discussed. This view accords the army rights of control over space, dictates a particular way of seeing rural space, and develops a quasi-environmentalist interpretation of the impact of army activity on the landscape. Second, it is suggested that this conceptualisation of the countryside contributes specifically to the construction of particular (hegemonic) notions of masculinity. The ideas of adventure and danger are particularly important in this respect. Third, the role of the body of the soldier in this process is examined. The construction of a specific ic gendered identity through a process of transformation from civilian to soldier is discussed. The article concludes by suggesting how the body of the soldier is used to sign fy particular senses of place.
Introduction
A First World War recruitment poster, one of a series, currently hangs in an upstairs gallery of the Imperial War Museum in London. A uniformed man stands gesturing towards a rural scene comprising a farmhouse nestling beside a river amongst rolling green hills. `The Call of the Open Air', says the caption. Join the Regular Army. It's a Man's Life!' A second contemporary recruitment poster for the Coldstream Guards is currently doing the rounds of an army recruitment roadshow. It depicts soldiers dressed in full combat gear engaged in various military and non-military pursuits (field firing training, abseiling, orienteering) in a number of different landscapes. `These Men Are Second to None', it says. These posters share two ideas. The first is obviously recruitment and the need to encourage men to join the army. The second idea is the set of connections made between soldiering activity, masculinity and the countryside. This article is about the latter.
The article explores how specific constructions of masculinity associated with soldiers are geographically constituted, usually with reference...