Ethnic minorities and brothers in arms: competition and homophily in the military

Although the solidarity of brothers in arms is an important feature of the military, when it comes to ethnic minorities there is a pivotal paradox. On the one hand the military aims at drawing boundaries between soldiers and civilians by blurring existing ethnic and racial divisions inside the milit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEthnic and racial studies Vol. 39; no. 14; pp. 2489 - 2507
Main Author Sion, Liora
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 13.11.2016
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Subjects
Armed forces
Boundaries
Competition
Contradictions
Ethnic groups
Ethnic relations
Ethnicity
Group dynamics
Hierarchy
homophily
Intergroup relations
interracial relations
Military
Military personnel
Minority & ethnic groups
Minority groups
Participant observation
the Netherland
Values
Work values
Kosovo
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Summary:Although the solidarity of brothers in arms is an important feature of the military, when it comes to ethnic minorities there is a pivotal paradox. On the one hand the military aims at drawing boundaries between soldiers and civilians by blurring existing ethnic and racial divisions inside the military. On the other hand the military is a highly national institution which prides itself on conservative values. Can these contradictions work? And how soldiers understand them? This paper examines the construction of ethnic boundaries in inter-group relations by focusing on the tension between ethnic hierarchy and competition versus homophily - the preference for maintaining ties with persons who are similar. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews with Dutch soldiers before and during deployment in Bosnia and Kosovo I ask when each strategy is put into work and why.
ISSN:0141-9870
1466-4356
DOI:10.1080/01419870.2016.1160138