scholarly journals Stigmatized Love, Boundary Making and the Heroic Love Myth: How Filipina Women Construct Their Relationships with American Military Men

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Reyes;Reyes
Keyword(s):  
The Philippines ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
American Military ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Marriage Migrants ◽  
Boundary Making

This chapter provides an empirical examination of how Filipina women construct their intimate relationships with US military men, and compares marriage migrants with those ‘left behind’ when the US military withdrew from their permanent bases in the Philippines. First, I’ll situate the case in theories on interracial love and marriage. Second, I outline my data and analytic approach. Following this, I focus on my findings. I show how the women talked about the base through the lens of childhood nostalgia. This is important to understand to contextualize their views of US servicemen and provide the backdrop from which these relationships were formed. Next, I show how they draw on love myths to frame their relationships and draw symbolic boundaries around their own relationship and others that may seem similar. Finally, I discuss how they further embraced their familial roles of wife and mother. Being legally or informally married to a US serviceman shapes a woman’s role in her family. Their childhood memories and current conceptions of motherhood and as a wife are interconnected with how they see their relationships with these men.

Contractual and stewardship timescapes: The cultural logics of US–Philippines environmental conflict and negotiations

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 616-629
Author(s):  
Victoria Reyes
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Environmental Conflict ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Environmental Toxins ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Legal Arguments

In 1992, the US military withdrew from its bases in the Philippines. But they left behind environmental toxins that continue to pollute the land and people. Why was the US military able to leave without cleaning up this environmental damage? What can the environment tell us about the broader Philippine–US relationship? In this article I analyse a 2002 class action lawsuit against the United States regarding environmental damages caused by the US military. I argue that at the heart of these legal arguments are different understandings of time and history, what I call a contractual timescape versus a stewardship timescape.

Operation Thin Mint: Popular Geopolitics of Care and Post-9/11 Girlhood

Young ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Goerisch
Keyword(s):  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Girl Scouts ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Girl Scout

In response to the events of 9/11, the Girl Scouts of San Diego created a service programme within the annual Girl Scout cookie sale called Operation Thin Mint, which sends cookies to soldiers serving overseas. Representations of American patriotism and national identity are featured prominently throughout the cookie sale as girls come to embody America’s role in overseas military conflicts, an embodiment of everyday geopolitical processes that frame the US military as protector of American innocence, ideals and values. Scouts come to engage with political and economic systems that position them beyond their communities as they ‘sell the nation’ to consumers as a form of care, blurring the boundaries between the public and private spheres as well as the local and global. Based on an in-depth ethnographic study on the Girl Scout cookie sale, this article will examine the complex gendered relationship between the American military, girls’ bodies and care.

scholarly journals An American Hero: Faith-Based Emergency Health Care in Karen State, Myanmar and Beyond

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 503
Author(s):  
Horstmann
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Emergency Health Care ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Freedom Fighters

This article examines the vastly expanded mobility of displaced Karen villagers in the evangelical humanitarian movement, the Free Burma Rangers. This builds on ethnographic fieldwork on humanitarian cultures in the Thai-Burmese borderlands conducted since 2007 with a Thai research team and funded by Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious Diversity. While refugees are too often presented as victims, the article argues that by joining the mission, the Karen freedom fighters become ambassadors of a political ideology and evangelism. Bringing Christianity with them from their displaced homes, displaced Karen meet the evangelical humanitarian organization in the Karen hills or in the Thai refugee camps, train with them, and supply the villagers left behind with emergency health care and religious messages. Sponsored by American evangelical churches, the US military, and resettled Karen communities in the West, the freedom fighters of the Free Burma Rangers mobilize people and resources all over the globe. Recently, they have expanded their operations beyond Myanmar to places as far as Syria, Iraq and South Sudan, thus getting involved in what it presents as a global struggle between good and evil.

scholarly journals Towards a comprehensive security alliance: Evolving dynamics in the United States’ humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to the Philippines

2021 ◽  
pp. 205789112110581
Author(s):  
Julius Cesar I. Trajano
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Disaster Relief ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Agency For International Development ◽  
The Us ◽  
Security Alliance

The Philippines’ humanitarian norms and frameworks have evolved from focusing on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to more pro-active disaster preparedness, enhancing community resilience and empowered participation of local and grassroots actors. The US-Philippines security alliance has evolved in line with these developments and needs to be understood more holistically and not be limited to providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief through sending foreign military assets in times of disasters. This article argues that the non-traditional aspect of the US-Philippines bilateral alliance is not intended to underplay the role of the US military, but highlights the importance of the private sector, humanitarian NGOs, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in deepening and broadening the security alliance.

New Philippines foreign policy may be destabilising

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
The Us ◽  
Common Position

Significance Liu was speaking to a Philippines delegation, an illustration of the Duterte administration's initial efforts to forge a new foreign policy and to repair ties with China. Impacts The Philippine communist insurgents, with whom Duterte is negotiating, will push for the US alliance to be cancelled. Duterte's new foreign policy allied with his reaching out to the communists may alienate the Philippine armed forces. Intra-ASEAN pressure to adopt a stronger common position on the South China Sea will reduce. Future US military aid to the Philippines could be at risk. Knowing that Manila cannot respond militarily and thus seeks warmer ties, Beijing may be bullish in Philippine waters.

Defense 101

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. O'Hanlon
Keyword(s):  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
American Military ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Critical Areas ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of

This book, a concise primer for understanding the US defense budget ($700 billion plus) and rapidly changing military technologies, provides a deeply informed yet accessible analysis of American military power. After an introduction which surveys today's international security environment, provides a brief sketch of the history of the US military, its command structure, the organization of its three million personnel, and a review of its domestic basing and global reach, the book provides in-depth coverage of four critical areas in military affairs. For policy makers and experts, military professionals, students, and citizens alike, the book helps make sense of the US Department of Defense, the basics of war and the future of armed conflict, and the most important characteristics of the American military.

Churn: Mobilization–demobilization and the fungibility of American military life

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 194-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken MacLeish
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
American Military ◽  
Military Recruiting ◽  
Personnel Practices ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Military Community ◽  
Post Traumatic

This article posits an analytic of mobilization–demobilization that attends to the instrumentalization and fungibility of military lives as both a primary source of embodied war-related harm and an undertheorized logic of the US war-making apparatus. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among post-9/11 military veterans in a US military community, the article explores mobilization–demobilization across three registers. First, I contrast it with dominant scholarly framings of ‘transition’, ‘reintegration’, and ‘militarization’, terms that analytically compartmentalize war in space and time. Second, I show how mobilization–demobilization drives the uptake and release of military labor and accounts for continuities between war violence and ‘war-like’ domestic political relations in 20th- and 21st-century US military recruiting, welfare, and personnel practices. Finally, I describe the trajectory of one veteran caught up in some elements of mobilization–demobilization, including injury, post-traumatic stress, substance use, and law-breaking, which are structured by the military’s management of his labor. These dynamics demonstrate crucial empirical links between the domestic and global faces of US war-making, and between war and nominally non-war domains.

America and the Garrison Stadium

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Paul Vasquez
Keyword(s):  
National Collegiate Athletic Association ◽  
College Football ◽  
World War ◽  
American Military ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Military Institutions ◽  
Service Academies ◽  
Second World

American military institutions importantly shaped the popular sport of college football. From support at its two oldest service academies, interest in football spread through military units across the country with military actors involved in the formation of the country’s first collegiate athletic conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Subsequently, the US military functioned as an agent of authoritative diffusion, fostering interest in college football after the First World War. Furthermore, military institutions, including the draft, affected not only which team would be most successful during the Second World War but also how civilians would play the game. These effects call to mind Charles Tilly’s work on state formation and security-driven resource extraction as well as Harold Lasswell’s garrison state idea.

scholarly journals An Engaging Remembrance: A Review of the American Battle Monuments Commission Website

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Santose
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Law ◽  
American Military ◽  
War Department ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Us ◽  
Monuments And Memorials

Over 100,000 US military personnel died during World War I, with many of these deaths occurring directly on foreign battlefields. Public Law 389, enacted by the 66th Congress, as well as Public Law 360, enacted by the 80th Congress, allowed for a family’s repatriation of soldier remains to the United States for burial in a national or private cemetery. In 1919, however, the US War Department decided to establish permanent American military cemeteries in Europe and offered this option as an alternative to repatriation. To persuade family members to consent, the War Department needed to ensure these cemeteries were impressive and significant symbols of the American sacrifice on foreign soil; therefore, the War Department detailed a group of Army officers to serve as the Battle Monuments Board in 1921. Two years later, on March 4, 1923, Congress passed the Act for the Creation of an American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which established one authoritative organization under Title 36 of the United States Code to control the construction of monuments and memorials to the American military in foreign countries.

Turbulent seas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Woodward
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
China Sea ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
The Us

This chapter discusses the South China Sea island disputes that have become the frontline in the US’s growing confrontation with China in Asia and the justification for a reinforced US military presence in the region. It particularly examines the role of the Philippines. While its neighbours have tried to soothe relations with China and keep on friendly terms with the US, the Philippines has placed itself at the head of a confrontation with China in the South China Sea. Its interventions since 2010, particularly its decision to refer the issues to the Arbitration court at the Hague have played a key role in turning the Sea into a global security hotspot. The chapter argues that it is primarily down to the Philippines that the US has been able to reestablish its presence and become a key actor in the South China Sea, justifying a stepped up US navy presence.

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