Introduction

CARREIRAS, HELENA; CASTRO,CELSO; FREDERIC, SABINA

Researching the military

Routledge

Año: 2016; p. 1 - 9

The social study of the military is a consolidated area. Research in military settings, civil-military relations or on armed forces and society related topics, involves particular challenges and raises acute ethical, methodological and procedural questions. Yet, with few exceptions, methodological aspects have been neglected and reflexivity has been surprisingly absent from the field (Higate and Cameron, 2006). Apart from a reasonable number of conscious efforts at mapping the scientific field from a cognitive point of view (paradigms, perspectives, topics), little attention has been directed, in the past, to the research process as a social endeavor or the position of researchers in their interaction with military actors and institutions.However, this situation has been changing in recent times, with the publication of works that explicitly address the topic of reflexivity and discuss methodological questions (Castro and Leirner, 2009; Carreiras and Castro, 2013, Soeters, Shields and Ritjens, 2013).