In recent decades, there has been a generational shift of the US
veterans' peace movement, from one grounded mostly in the experiences of
older white men of the Vietnam War era, to one informed by a young,
diverse cohort of post-9/11 veterans. In Unconventional Combat, Michael A. Messner
traces
this transformation through the life-history interviews of six veterans
of color to show how their experiences of sexual and gender harassment,
sexual assault, racist and homophobic abuse during their military
service has shaped their political views and action. Drawing upon
participant
observation with the Veterans For Peace and About Face
organizations and interviews with older male veterans as his backdrop,
Messner shows how veterans' military experiences form their collective
"situated knowledge" of intersecting oppressions. This knowledge,
Messner argues, further shapes their
intersectional praxis, which
promises to transform the veterans' peace movement and potentially link
their anti-militarist work with other movement groups working for
change. As intersectionality has increasingly become central to the
conversation on social movements, Unconventional Combat is not
only
a story about the US veterans' peace movement, but it also offers broad
relevance to the larger world of social justice activism.
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