An ethnographic research in military field. Rethinking academic autonomy in the study of the exodus of junior military personnel in Argentina.

FREDERIC, SABINA

Chicago

Congreso; International Biennial Conference of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society; 2013

Argentina is a large country with 38,8 per cent of its total population of 40 million people living in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. Transport, education, and health systems are concentrated in that small area, causing regional inequalities. However, its armed forces, especially the Army, were built and developed through a concept of territorial defence, making it necessary to spread military units across the country. Although these conditions also existed in the past, increasingly military officers asked the Ministry of Defence whether their domicile could be adapted to their needs. Three types can be distinguished: the ones who accept separation from their families but express suffering and discomfort ; the ones who demand a posting nearer to their families; and the ones whose families have always relocated with each and every new posting, but recognize how these frequent changes have stressed their family members. Using an anthropological perspective to analyze qualitative interview data, this chapter addresses the following questions: what changing conditions have produced this new challenge to family organization? How have new social family arrangements and new cultural values defeated the traditional military family concept? Do armed forces have institutional instruments to ameliorate undesired effects? Does the meaning of military profession and its relationship with military family differ across generations?