Megan Mackenzie
Biographic Data
| ID | 4134592 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Megan Mackenzie |
| GIVEN NAMES | Megan |
| FAMILY NAME | Mackenzie |
| SIGNATURE | MACKENZIE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4052-2420 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 166 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Postcards from the Pandemic
The COVID-19 crisis created, and continues to produce, unprecedented challenges globally. Marginalized and racialized families, communities, and nations are experiencing their worst impacts, and in particular, women and girls are the hardest hit. The most pressing concerns raised by COVID-19 include a surge in gender-based violence, a rise in care burden, the feminization of poverty, and growing unemployment, largely in the Global South and confl…
Australian war crimes in Afghanistan
This is article introduces the special issue focused on allegations of war crimes committed by Australian Defence Forces (ADF) in Afghanistan. Submissions focus on these specific allegation and also offer broader context in terms of both the history of war crimes committed by ADF forces internationally, and the global context of Western military war crimes and illicit activities in foreign countries, military culture and military masculinities. T…
Is the problem with military culture one of bad apples or bad orchards
This article examines the historic and current role of 'culture' in Australian Defence Forces' responses to scandals, war crimes, and illicit behaviours. It makes the case that the ADF has moved from arguing that illicit activities are the product of isolated soldiers, to arguing that illicit activities are the result of 'rogue' groups of soldiers. We call this a shift from the 'bad apples'' to the 'bad orchard' thesis. Drawing on the concepts of…
War Myths and the Normalization of PTSD and Military Suicide
Military suicide is an increasing concern for Western militaries. In this article, using a qualitative media analysis, we introduce the military suicide equation as a metanarrative and analytic tool for understanding discourse on military suicides. This metanarrative-overseas service + post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) = suicide-positions military suicide as the consequences of PTSD acquired during overseas military deployment and positions i…
Ethics of Being Close
This acrylic painting considers intimacy and its ethical demands during our personal and professional encounters with one another, drawing on Pablo Picasso's 1907 Head of the Medical Student
Iconic war images and the myth of the ‘good American Soldier’
This article explores the ‘good American soldier’ as a gendered ideal type shaped by, and reproductive of, myths about American military success, romantic notions of small-town working and white America, notions of heterosexual virility, and ableist stereotypes about personal resilience. Drawing from an analysis of 10 years of media coverage of an iconic image dubbed the ‘Marlboro Marine’, the article outlines three specific myths linked to the ‘…
Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone
"The eleven-year civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002 was incomprehensibly brutal--it is estimated that half of all female refugees were raped and many thousands were killed. While the publicity surrounding sexual violence helped to create a general picture of women and girls as victims of the conflict, there has been little effort to understand female soldiers' involvement in, and experience of, the conflict. Female Soldiers in Sierra Leo…
Why do soldiers swap illicit pictures? How a visual discourse analysis illuminates military band of brother culture
Military service members have been taking and circulating illicit images for decades, and soldier-produced illicit images are a regular and coherent category of international images. Focusing on two case studies – Abu Ghraib images and images of hazing – the argument put forward in this article is that soldier-generated illicit images are not simply photographic evidence, or accidental by-products, of exceptional military activities; rather, thes…
Illicit Military Behavior as Exceptional and Inevitable
How can we understand consistent public support and trust of the military even in climates of high rates of public awareness about military sexual violence? This article examines how the phenomenon of military sexual violence is mediated to the public through a media content and discourse analysis of newspaper reportage about military sexual violence in Australia. The analysis covers an almost thirty-year period (1989–2016) during which several “…
Can we really “forget” militarization? A conversation on Alison Howell’s martial politics
First paragraph: Alison Howell’s (2018) article “Forget ‘Militarization’: Race, Disability and the ‘Martial Politics’ of the Police and of the University” has already generated many rich conversations. With its bold critique of formulaic uses of the term “militarization,” and a call to observe the ways in which everyday life is shaped by martial politics, Howell's contribution especially gave pause to many of us who readily use the concept of mil…
Masculinity nostalgia
This article investigates how war and occupation disrupt and produce new gender norms. It explores civilian masculinities and the ways in which masculinities are impacted by conflict and insecurity. Focusing on the West Bank, we argue that insecurity and occupation create the conditions for masculinity nostalgia, or a yearning for a set of gender norms and relations linked to fantasies of a secure, ‘traditional’ and ordered past. Masculinity nost…
Beyond the Band of Brothers
Women can't fight. This assumption lies at the heart of the combat exclusion, a policy that was fiercely defended as essential to national security, despite evidence that women have been contributing to hostile operations now and throughout history. This book examines the role of women in the US military and the key arguments used to justify the combat exclusion, in the light of the decision to reverse the policy in 2013. Megan MacKenzie consider…
Women in combat
The January 2013 announcement that the United States Department of Defense would reverse its long-standing combat exclusion for women reignited debates about women's role in the military and the ge
No Amnesty from/for the International
The literature on norms is dominated by debates over the definition of norms, discussion of the evolution of norms, norm diffusion, or norm implementation, and accounts of positive features associated with norms such as cooperation, mutual understanding. This paper argues that “the story” of international norms—or the dominant account of norms—is primarily a white, Western version that assumes that norms emerge from equal exchanges and relationsh…
Cowboy’ Policing versus ‘the Softer Stuff’
This article examines masculinities in relation to the New Zealand police force Community Policing Pilot Program in Timor-Leste (East Timor). We find that despite calls for less militarized, more community-centered approaches to security sector reform, various forms of militarized masculinities persisted within the culture of the New Zealand Police during its international mission. In doing so, we not only complicate singular representations of m…
Measuring the impacts of truth and reconciliation commissions
Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) have emerged as an international norm and are assumed to be an essential element of national reconciliation, democratization, and post-conflict development. Despite the increase in the number of TRCs being initiated around the globe and the international consensus regarding their positive effects, there is little understanding of the long-term effects and consequences of TRCs. Specifically, currently th…
Feminist Security Studies
Annick T. R. WIBBEN, Routledge, 2011, ISBN 978-0-4154-7286, £23.99 (pbk), 153 pp. In Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach, Annick Wibben goes beyond the tired debates about expanding ver
Securitizing Sex
Visions of the post-conflict reintegration process in Sierra Leone as a moment of healing, reconstruction, opportunity and rehabilitation do not take into account the experience of women and girls who were raped during the conflict. For them, the post-conflict period is often characterized by trauma, silence and stigmatization. This article examines wartime rape in relation to the liberal family model and the perception of sex as a ‘private’ soci…
Empowerment boom or bust? Assessing women's post-conflict empowerment initiatives
Over the past decade, the term 'empowerment' has been generously employed and woefully ill-defined. In particular, women's empowerment has been embraced by such a vast number of development actors that it appears to be a unifying mission within development. Despite the boom in women's empowerment initiatives, there remains little critical analysis of the use of empowerment in general, and the perceived success or failures of specific empowerment …
Securitization and Desecuritization
This article focuses on the construction of “soldier” and “victim” by post-conflict programs in Sierra Leone. Focusing on the absence of individual testimonies and interviews that inform representations of women and girls post-conflict, this article demonstrates that the ideal of the female war victim has limited the ways in which female combatants are addressed by disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs in Sierra Leone. It …
Securitization and Desecuritization
This article focuses on the construction of “soldier” and “victim” by post-conflict programs in Sierra Leone. Focusing on the absence of individual testimonies and interviews that inform representations of women and girls post-conflict, this article demonstrates that the ideal of the female war victim has limited the ways in which female combatants are addressed by disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs in Sierra Leone. It …
Masculinity nostalgia
This article investigates how war and occupation disrupt and produce new gender norms. It explores civilian masculinities and the ways in which masculinities are impacted by conflict and insecurity. Focusing on the West Bank, we argue that insecurity and occupation create the conditions for masculinity nostalgia, or a yearning for a set of gender norms and relations linked to fantasies of a secure, ‘traditional’ and ordered past. Masculinity nost…
Empowerment boom or bust? Assessing women's post-conflict empowerment initiatives
Over the past decade, the term 'empowerment' has been generously employed and woefully ill-defined. In particular, women's empowerment has been embraced by such a vast number of development actors that it appears to be a unifying mission within development. Despite the boom in women's empowerment initiatives, there remains little critical analysis of the use of empowerment in general, and the perceived success or failures of specific empowerment …
Measuring the impacts of truth and reconciliation commissions
Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) have emerged as an international norm and are assumed to be an essential element of national reconciliation, democratization, and post-conflict development. Despite the increase in the number of TRCs being initiated around the globe and the international consensus regarding their positive effects, there is little understanding of the long-term effects and consequences of TRCs. Specifically, currently th…
Securitizing Sex
Visions of the post-conflict reintegration process in Sierra Leone as a moment of healing, reconstruction, opportunity and rehabilitation do not take into account the experience of women and girls who were raped during the conflict. For them, the post-conflict period is often characterized by trauma, silence and stigmatization. This article examines wartime rape in relation to the liberal family model and the perception of sex as a ‘private’ soci…
No Amnesty from/for the International
The literature on norms is dominated by debates over the definition of norms, discussion of the evolution of norms, norm diffusion, or norm implementation, and accounts of positive features associated with norms such as cooperation, mutual understanding. This paper argues that “the story” of international norms—or the dominant account of norms—is primarily a white, Western version that assumes that norms emerge from equal exchanges and relationsh…
Can we really “forget” militarization? A conversation on Alison Howell’s martial politics
First paragraph: Alison Howell’s (2018) article “Forget ‘Militarization’: Race, Disability and the ‘Martial Politics’ of the Police and of the University” has already generated many rich conversations. With its bold critique of formulaic uses of the term “militarization,” and a call to observe the ways in which everyday life is shaped by martial politics, Howell's contribution especially gave pause to many of us who readily use the concept of mil…
Feminist Security Studies
Annick T. R. WIBBEN, Routledge, 2011, ISBN 978-0-4154-7286, £23.99 (pbk), 153 pp. In Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach, Annick Wibben goes beyond the tired debates about expanding ver
Why do soldiers swap illicit pictures? How a visual discourse analysis illuminates military band of brother culture
Military service members have been taking and circulating illicit images for decades, and soldier-produced illicit images are a regular and coherent category of international images. Focusing on two case studies – Abu Ghraib images and images of hazing – the argument put forward in this article is that soldier-generated illicit images are not simply photographic evidence, or accidental by-products, of exceptional military activities; rather, thes…
Illicit Military Behavior as Exceptional and Inevitable
How can we understand consistent public support and trust of the military even in climates of high rates of public awareness about military sexual violence? This article examines how the phenomenon of military sexual violence is mediated to the public through a media content and discourse analysis of newspaper reportage about military sexual violence in Australia. The analysis covers an almost thirty-year period (1989–2016) during which several “…
Cowboy’ Policing versus ‘the Softer Stuff’
This article examines masculinities in relation to the New Zealand police force Community Policing Pilot Program in Timor-Leste (East Timor). We find that despite calls for less militarized, more community-centered approaches to security sector reform, various forms of militarized masculinities persisted within the culture of the New Zealand Police during its international mission. In doing so, we not only complicate singular representations of m…
Iconic war images and the myth of the ‘good American Soldier’
This article explores the ‘good American soldier’ as a gendered ideal type shaped by, and reproductive of, myths about American military success, romantic notions of small-town working and white America, notions of heterosexual virility, and ableist stereotypes about personal resilience. Drawing from an analysis of 10 years of media coverage of an iconic image dubbed the ‘Marlboro Marine’, the article outlines three specific myths linked to the ‘…
Is the problem with military culture one of bad apples or bad orchards
This article examines the historic and current role of 'culture' in Australian Defence Forces' responses to scandals, war crimes, and illicit behaviours. It makes the case that the ADF has moved from arguing that illicit activities are the product of isolated soldiers, to arguing that illicit activities are the result of 'rogue' groups of soldiers. We call this a shift from the 'bad apples'' to the 'bad orchard' thesis. Drawing on the concepts of…
Women in combat
The January 2013 announcement that the United States Department of Defense would reverse its long-standing combat exclusion for women reignited debates about women's role in the military and the ge
War Myths and the Normalization of PTSD and Military Suicide
Military suicide is an increasing concern for Western militaries. In this article, using a qualitative media analysis, we introduce the military suicide equation as a metanarrative and analytic tool for understanding discourse on military suicides. This metanarrative-overseas service + post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) = suicide-positions military suicide as the consequences of PTSD acquired during overseas military deployment and positions i…
Empowerment boom or bust? Assessing women's post-conflict empowerment initiatives
Over the past decade, the term 'empowerment' has been generously employed and woefully ill-defined. In particular, women's empowerment has been embraced by such a vast number of development actors that it appears to be a unifying mission within development. Despite the boom in women's empowerment initiatives, there remains little critical analysis of the use of empowerment in general, and the perceived success or failures of specific empowerment …
Securitization and Desecuritization
This article focuses on the construction of “soldier” and “victim” by post-conflict programs in Sierra Leone. Focusing on the absence of individual testimonies and interviews that inform representations of women and girls post-conflict, this article demonstrates that the ideal of the female war victim has limited the ways in which female combatants are addressed by disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs in Sierra Leone. It …
Securitizing Sex
Visions of the post-conflict reintegration process in Sierra Leone as a moment of healing, reconstruction, opportunity and rehabilitation do not take into account the experience of women and girls who were raped during the conflict. For them, the post-conflict period is often characterized by trauma, silence and stigmatization. This article examines wartime rape in relation to the liberal family model and the perception of sex as a ‘private’ soci…
Feminist Security Studies
Annick T. R. WIBBEN, Routledge, 2011, ISBN 978-0-4154-7286, £23.99 (pbk), 153 pp. In Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach, Annick Wibben goes beyond the tired debates about expanding ver
No Amnesty from/for the International
The literature on norms is dominated by debates over the definition of norms, discussion of the evolution of norms, norm diffusion, or norm implementation, and accounts of positive features associated with norms such as cooperation, mutual understanding. This paper argues that “the story” of international norms—or the dominant account of norms—is primarily a white, Western version that assumes that norms emerge from equal exchanges and relationsh…
Cowboy’ Policing versus ‘the Softer Stuff’
This article examines masculinities in relation to the New Zealand police force Community Policing Pilot Program in Timor-Leste (East Timor). We find that despite calls for less militarized, more community-centered approaches to security sector reform, various forms of militarized masculinities persisted within the culture of the New Zealand Police during its international mission. In doing so, we not only complicate singular representations of m…
Measuring the impacts of truth and reconciliation commissions
Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) have emerged as an international norm and are assumed to be an essential element of national reconciliation, democratization, and post-conflict development. Despite the increase in the number of TRCs being initiated around the globe and the international consensus regarding their positive effects, there is little understanding of the long-term effects and consequences of TRCs. Specifically, currently th…
Women in combat
The January 2013 announcement that the United States Department of Defense would reverse its long-standing combat exclusion for women reignited debates about women's role in the military and the ge
Beyond the Band of Brothers
Women can't fight. This assumption lies at the heart of the combat exclusion, a policy that was fiercely defended as essential to national security, despite evidence that women have been contributing to hostile operations now and throughout history. This book examines the role of women in the US military and the key arguments used to justify the combat exclusion, in the light of the decision to reverse the policy in 2013. Megan MacKenzie consider…
Masculinity nostalgia
This article investigates how war and occupation disrupt and produce new gender norms. It explores civilian masculinities and the ways in which masculinities are impacted by conflict and insecurity. Focusing on the West Bank, we argue that insecurity and occupation create the conditions for masculinity nostalgia, or a yearning for a set of gender norms and relations linked to fantasies of a secure, ‘traditional’ and ordered past. Masculinity nost…
Can we really “forget” militarization? A conversation on Alison Howell’s martial politics
First paragraph: Alison Howell’s (2018) article “Forget ‘Militarization’: Race, Disability and the ‘Martial Politics’ of the Police and of the University” has already generated many rich conversations. With its bold critique of formulaic uses of the term “militarization,” and a call to observe the ways in which everyday life is shaped by martial politics, Howell's contribution especially gave pause to many of us who readily use the concept of mil…
Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone
"The eleven-year civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002 was incomprehensibly brutal--it is estimated that half of all female refugees were raped and many thousands were killed. While the publicity surrounding sexual violence helped to create a general picture of women and girls as victims of the conflict, there has been little effort to understand female soldiers' involvement in, and experience of, the conflict. Female Soldiers in Sierra Leo…
Why do soldiers swap illicit pictures? How a visual discourse analysis illuminates military band of brother culture
Military service members have been taking and circulating illicit images for decades, and soldier-produced illicit images are a regular and coherent category of international images. Focusing on two case studies – Abu Ghraib images and images of hazing – the argument put forward in this article is that soldier-generated illicit images are not simply photographic evidence, or accidental by-products, of exceptional military activities; rather, thes…
Illicit Military Behavior as Exceptional and Inevitable
How can we understand consistent public support and trust of the military even in climates of high rates of public awareness about military sexual violence? This article examines how the phenomenon of military sexual violence is mediated to the public through a media content and discourse analysis of newspaper reportage about military sexual violence in Australia. The analysis covers an almost thirty-year period (1989–2016) during which several “…
Ethics of Being Close
This acrylic painting considers intimacy and its ethical demands during our personal and professional encounters with one another, drawing on Pablo Picasso's 1907 Head of the Medical Student
Iconic war images and the myth of the ‘good American Soldier’
This article explores the ‘good American soldier’ as a gendered ideal type shaped by, and reproductive of, myths about American military success, romantic notions of small-town working and white America, notions of heterosexual virility, and ableist stereotypes about personal resilience. Drawing from an analysis of 10 years of media coverage of an iconic image dubbed the ‘Marlboro Marine’, the article outlines three specific myths linked to the ‘…
War Myths and the Normalization of PTSD and Military Suicide
Military suicide is an increasing concern for Western militaries. In this article, using a qualitative media analysis, we introduce the military suicide equation as a metanarrative and analytic tool for understanding discourse on military suicides. This metanarrative-overseas service + post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) = suicide-positions military suicide as the consequences of PTSD acquired during overseas military deployment and positions i…
Australian war crimes in Afghanistan
This is article introduces the special issue focused on allegations of war crimes committed by Australian Defence Forces (ADF) in Afghanistan. Submissions focus on these specific allegation and also offer broader context in terms of both the history of war crimes committed by ADF forces internationally, and the global context of Western military war crimes and illicit activities in foreign countries, military culture and military masculinities. T…
Is the problem with military culture one of bad apples or bad orchards
This article examines the historic and current role of 'culture' in Australian Defence Forces' responses to scandals, war crimes, and illicit behaviours. It makes the case that the ADF has moved from arguing that illicit activities are the product of isolated soldiers, to arguing that illicit activities are the result of 'rogue' groups of soldiers. We call this a shift from the 'bad apples'' to the 'bad orchard' thesis. Drawing on the concepts of…
Postcards from the Pandemic
The COVID-19 crisis created, and continues to produce, unprecedented challenges globally. Marginalized and racialized families, communities, and nations are experiencing their worst impacts, and in particular, women and girls are the hardest hit. The most pressing concerns raised by COVID-19 include a surge in gender-based violence, a rise in care burden, the feminization of poverty, and growing unemployment, largely in the Global South and confl…
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Art (5 works)