The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods

As an edited collection, the book brings together an extensive selection of authors whose chapters engage with a core concern about the process of conducting research on military issues from a range of perspectives. The military issues, and the research questions they raise, are wide-ranging, from the practicalities of doing research with military personnel, through to the challenges of visualising military activities. Each chapter in this volume:

- describes the nature of the military research topic under scrutiny and explains what research practices were undertaken and why;

- discusses author''s research activities, addressing the nature of their engagement with their subjects and analyses what the method or approach under scrutiny actually did that was distinctive because of the military context or subject of the research;

- reflects on the author''s research experiences, and the specific, often unique, negotiations with the politics and practices of military institutions and military personnel before, during and after their research fieldwork.

This volume not only provides a focused overview of methodological approaches to critical studies of the military and military institutions and processes of militarisation and practices of militarism, but also, importantly, accounts for a growth in qualitative military research which is carried out beyond the intellectual confines of military research institutions. This definitive single volume coverage of how critical military research is being undertaken by social scientists and humanities scholars today, acts as a comprehensive guide for future research.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war and conflict studies, and research methods.

This new handbook is about the practices of conducting research on military issues.

As an edited collection, it brings together an extensive group of authors from a range of disciplinary perspectives whose chapters engage with the conceptual, practical and political questions raised when doing military research. The book considers a wide range of questions around research about, on and with military organisations, personnel and activities, from diverse starting-points across the social sciences, arts and humanities.

Each chapter in this volume:

• Describes the nature of the military research topic under scrutiny and explains what research practices were undertaken and why.
• Discusses the author''s research activities, addressing the nature of their engagement with their subjects and explaining how the method or approach under scrutiny was distinctive because of the military context or subject of the research.
• Reflects on the author’s research experiences, and the specific, often unique, negotiations with the politics and practices of military institutions and military personnel before, during and after their research fieldwork.

The book provides a focussed overview of methodological approaches to critical studies of military personnel and institutions, and processes and practices of militarisation and militarism. In particular, it engages with the growth in qualitative approaches to military research, particularly research carried out on military topics outside military research institutions. The handbook provides the reader with a comprehensive guide to how critical military research is being undertaken by social scientists and humanities scholars today, and sets out suggestions for future approaches to military research.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war and conflict studies, and research methods in general.