Eyal Ben-Ari – författare

This volume explores and develops new social-scientific tools for the analysis and understanding of contemporary military missions in theatre.

Despite the advent of new types of armed conflict, the social-scientific study of militaries in action continues to focus on tools developed in the hey-day of conventional wars. These tools focus on such classic issues as cohesion and leadership, communication and unit dynamics, or discipline and motivation. While these issues continue to be important, most studies focus on organic units (up to and including brigades). By contrast, this volume suggests the utility of concepts related to mission formations – as opposed to ‘units’ or ‘components’ – to better capture the (ongoing) processual nature of the amalgamations and combinations that military involvement in conflicts necessitates. The study of these formations by the social sciences – sociology, social psychology, anthropology, political science and organization science – requires the introduction of new analytical tools to the study of militaries in theatre. As such, this volume utilizes new approaches to social life, organizational dynamics and to armed violence to understand the place of the armed forces in contemporary conflicts and the new tasks they are assigned.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, security studies and International Relations in general.

This volume explores and develops new social-scientific tools for the analysis and understanding of contemporary military missions in theatre.

Despite the advent of new types of armed conflict, the social-scientific study of militaries in action continues to focus on tools developed in the hey-day of conventional wars. These tools focus on such classic issues as cohesion and leadership, communication and unit dynamics, or discipline and motivation. While these issues continue to be important, most studies focus on organic units (up to and including brigades). By contrast, this volume suggests the utility of concepts related to mission formations – as opposed to ‘units’ or ‘components’ – to better capture the (ongoing) processual nature of the amalgamations and combinations that military involvement in conflicts necessitates. The study of these formations by the social sciences – sociology, social psychology, anthropology, political science and organization science – requires the introduction of new analytical tools to the study of militaries in theatre. As such, this volume utilizes new approaches to social life, organizational dynamics and to armed violence to understand the place of the armed forces in contemporary conflicts and the new tasks they are assigned.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, security studies and International Relations in general.

This book uncovers and explains the ways by which politics is naturalized and denaturalized, and familiarized and de-familiarized through popular media. It explores the tensions between state actors such as censors, politicized and nonpoliticized audiences, and visual media creators, at various points in the history of Japanese visual media. It offers new research on a wide array of visual media texts including classical narrative cinema, television, documentary film, manga, and animated film. It spans the militarized decades of the 1930s and 1940s, through the Asia Pacific War into the present day, and demonstrates how processes of politicization and depoliticization should be understood as part of wider historical developments including Japan’s postwar devastation and poverty, subsequent rapid modernization and urbanization, and the aging population and economic struggles of the twenty-first century.

This book uncovers and explains the ways by which politics is naturalized and denaturalized, and familiarized and de-familiarized through popular media. It explores the tensions between state actors such as censors, politicized and nonpoliticized audiences, and visual media creators, at various points in the history of Japanese visual media. It offers new research on a wide array of visual media texts including classical narrative cinema, television, documentary film, manga, and animated film. It spans the militarized decades of the 1930s and 1940s, through the Asia Pacific War into the present day, and demonstrates how processes of politicization and depoliticization should be understood as part of wider historical developments including Japan’s postwar devastation and poverty, subsequent rapid modernization and urbanization, and the aging population and economic struggles of the twenty-first century.

This book seeks to chart and evaluate the impact of social research on the military itself.

By "impact", the authors in this volume simply mean that which has a marked effect or influence on changing military policy, practices, knowledge, skills, behaviour, or living conditions. The book comprises a series of reflective contributions from scholars who have conducted research on the military as external scholars with no formal ties to the armed forces, as "native" researchers formally linked to them, as well as various kinds of contracted social scientists enabled by the military to carry out their investigations. The authors were asked to make the question of the impact of social scientific research on the armed forces an object of study in itself and to situate their reflections in terms of wider analytical questions. As a result, the chapters can be divided, broadly speaking, into two types of orientation: some are centered on theoretical and analytical issues, while others focus on the researchers’ lived experiences.

This book will be of interest to students of military studies, sociology, organisational studies, psychology and political science.

This book seeks to chart and evaluate the impact of social research on the military itself.

By "impact", the authors in this volume simply mean that which has a marked effect or influence on changing military policy, practices, knowledge, skills, behaviour, or living conditions. The book comprises a series of reflective contributions from scholars who have conducted research on the military as external scholars with no formal ties to the armed forces, as "native" researchers formally linked to them, as well as various kinds of contracted social scientists enabled by the military to carry out their investigations. The authors were asked to make the question of the impact of social scientific research on the armed forces an object of study in itself and to situate their reflections in terms of wider analytical questions. As a result, the chapters can be divided, broadly speaking, into two types of orientation: some are centered on theoretical and analytical issues, while others focus on the researchers’ lived experiences.

This book will be of interest to students of military studies, sociology, organisational studies, psychology and political science.

This book explores the roles cultural intermediaries play in East Asian cinema. Based on extensive original research, and viewing cinema from the social science perspective which emphasizes the social processes entailed in the cultural production, circulation, and consumption of films and the social relations they involve, rather than studying films as texts, the book examines issues such as the differences between individual and collective intermediaries, the diverse resources and services that they mediate, their social background and targeted audiences, and the political implications of their work. One important conclusion is that cultural intermediaries have been central to creating the whole "idea" of East Asian cinema.

This book explores the roles cultural intermediaries play in East Asian cinema. Based on extensive original research, and viewing cinema from the social science perspective which emphasizes the social processes entailed in the cultural production, circulation, and consumption of films and the social relations they involve, rather than studying films as texts, the book examines issues such as the differences between individual and collective intermediaries, the diverse resources and services that they mediate, their social background and targeted audiences, and the political implications of their work. One important conclusion is that cultural intermediaries have been central to creating the whole "idea" of East Asian cinema.

This book offers a comparative study of military reserves in contemporary democracies.

A combination of budgetary pressures, new missions and emerging military roles during the past three decades has led the armed forces of democracies to rethink the training and use of reserve forces. Moreover, reservists have become central to the armed forces as part of moves towards "total" or "comprehensive" defense. Despite this, a scholarly bias towards studying regulars and conscripts means that reservists and reserve soldiers continue to receive only marginal attention. This volume fills that lacuna through a series of country studies examining how best to understand the peculiarities of reservist service. In contrast to regulars and conscripts, reservists are marked by their dual management of civilian and military careers, different family dynamics, diverse motivations and commitment to the armed forces, the material and non-material incentives they are offered, and their place in the political sphere. This volume suggests two frames to make sense of such differences: first, it looks at reservists as "transmigrants" traveling between the military and civilian worlds; and, second, it analyzes the multiple informal "contracts" and negotiations that bind them to the military. All the chapters adopt these conceptualizations, granting the volume a common focus and integrative frame.

The volume will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, civil-military relations, sociology and International Relations.