Marching to be somebody: a governmentality analysis of online cadet recruitment
Wells, Karen (2014) Marching to be somebody: a governmentality analysis of online cadet recruitment. Children's Geographies 12 (3), pp. 339-353. ISSN 1473-3285.
Abstract
This paper offers a governmentality analysis of the online recruitment materials of the British Army Cadets. Governmentality theory attends to the role of rationalities and techniques of government in producing subjectivity. I apply this theory to an analysis of recruitment materials to show that the cadets can be understood as techniques of government that are framed within rationalities that position young masculinity as risky, particularly in contexts of urban poverty. These techniques of government include the use of stylised practices to discipline the body and the deployment of military artefacts that enable the Cadets to perform ‘tough masculinity’. I argue that the Cadets appeal to the desire to use their bodies, as arguably the only resource that poor working-class youth have unmediated access to, as the site on which reputation and respectability can be inscribed.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | respectability, working class, masculinity, uniform, body |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR) |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Nov 2014 11:53 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:13 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/10873 |
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