Improper channels : a feminist analysis of military social services in relation to Canadian military wives and their work
Date
1995
Authors
Miller, Beverly Jean
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Abstract
This thesis is an exploration of how Canadian military wives' experiences of needing help with their everyday work are transformed through the military system so as to render their troubles as military wives manageable in specific ways. A feminist, non-positivist method of institutional ethnography used by the researcher reveals an understanding and explication of the power relations and ruling experienced by military wives in their relation to the military helping professions. The author argues that women marrying military members become 'objects' of military knowledge and organizational action. This study shows how military wives' work in their families helps keep their husbands operationally effective, thus the wives are doing work for the military. The military both creates wives' troubles and transforms them into personal problems.