Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods

This new handbook is about the practices of conducting research on military issues.

As an edited collection, it brings together an extensive group of authors from a range of disciplinary perspectives whose chapters engage with the conceptual, practical and political questions raised when doing military research. The book considers a wide range of questions around research about, on and with military organisations, personnel and activities, from diverse starting-points across the social sciences, arts and humanities.

Each chapter in this volume:

• Describes the nature of the military research topic under scrutiny and explains what research practices were undertaken and why.
• Discusses the author's research activities, addressing the nature of their engagement with their subjects and explaining how the method or approach under scrutiny was distinctive because of the military context or subject of the research.
• Reflects on the author’s research experiences, and the specific, often unique, negotiations with the politics and practices of military institutions and military personnel before, during and after their research fieldwork.

The book provides a focussed overview of methodological approaches to critical studies of military personnel and institutions, and processes and practices of militarisation and militarism. In particular, it engages with the growth in qualitative approaches to military research, particularly research carried out on military topics outside military research institutions. The handbook provides the reader with a comprehensive guide to how critical military research is being undertaken by social scientists and humanities scholars today, and sets out suggestions for future approaches to military research.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war and conflict studies, and research methods in general.

Alison J. Williams is Senior Lecturer in Political Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. She is co-editor of From Above: war, violence and verticality (2013) and co-author of The Value of the University Armed Service Units (2015).

K. Neil Jenkings is Senior Research Associate in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. He is the author/editor of numerous titles, including most recently The Value of the University Armed Service Units (co-author, 2015) .

Matthew F. Rech is Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental sciences at Plymouth University, UK. His research engages with everyday militarism and popular culture, particularly in the British context.

Rachel Woodward is Professor of Human Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. She is the author of Military Geographies (2004) and co-author of Sexing the Soldier (Routledge, 2007).