Changing boundaries, defending boundaries : Gender relations in the Swedish Armed Forces

Abstract: This thesis aims to show how gender is done in the Swedish Armed Forces, against the backdrop of its transition into an international defence organization and the international resolutions that call for gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping operations. In the so-called “New Armed Forces”, traditional demarcations that have separated civilian employees from members of the military officer profession are no longer self-evident. At the same time, what it means to be men and women in the military is changing.Three empirical studies form the basis of the thesis. The first consists of qualitative interviews with women pioneers in the military officer profession, and discusses how gender relations in the Swedish military have changed since the inclusion of women. The second addresses the intersecting relations of gender and occupation and is based on interviews with strategic and executive actors in the Armed Forces Headquarters. The third, ethnographic, study follows a military unit preparing for a peacekeeping mission. It focuses on gender relations in everyday work and shows how the ongoing transformation changes what it means to be military men and women.The thesis is informed by feminist studies of organization, critical studies of men and masculinities, research on professions and occupations, and military studies. A “doing gender” approach and a relational view of both gender and occupations guide the analysis. The analysis shows how established ways of doing gender are changed and reproduced in military practices, how the emphasis on peacekeeping reshapes gender relations in military work, and how organizational boundaries are maintained and deconstructed in organizational practices. Theoretically, the thesis contributes by developing tools for analysing the practising of gender in organizations. The concept of boundary work is elaborated into a tool for analysing how demarcations of gender and occupation are accomplished in work practices. The concept Repair work is employed to capture the complexities of doing masculinities in organizations, by looking closely at situations where the everyday practising of gender is disturbed.