Leveraging, militarising, and stereotyping civilians for the war effort

Pedagogies of gender in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe

Bibliographic Data

ID11425199
AuthorsNancy Taber (0000-0002-2911-1295, Brock University, corresponding author), Ashley Grover (Brock University)
Year2021
Volume40
Issue3
Pages268-280
Publication date2021-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Lifelong Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0260-1370 • E-ISSN: 1464-519X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02601370.2021.1946864
OpenAlexW3183648345
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited24

This article details our exploration of the ways in which gender, militarism, and learning intersect in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe. We outline our theoretical framework of feminist antimilitarism, grounded in adult education; discuss research about museums in general and war museums in particular; and, explain our methodology of feminist discourse analysis and visual analysis. We focus on an element that is typically not a central point of analysis in research about war museums: the pedagogical and gendered representation of civilians. Our findings indicate that civilians are underrepresented, in comparison to soldiers, in war museums, but that, when they are present, they are discursively constructed in ways that teach civilians to be part of the war machine by: leveraging civilian deaths, militarising civilians as soldiers, and stereotyping women civilians. We conclude with suggestions for museum directors, curators, and adult educators to work together to problematise how war is remembered

Media studies · Militarism · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · World War II · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Military, Security, and Education Studies

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