Research Catalogue

The author defines the brutal choreography of marching, which indeed can be aestetically pleasing, hence the danger of it. Marching creates an affect on the surroundings, through rhythm, sound and physical presence. The author analyses the movements of soldiers through choreographic and somatic intelligence with a feminist approach.  

I appreciated the notelike writing, it gave me a sense of reading somebody’s field work notes, while the writer was still on the field doing the work. The writing made it impossible to distance oneself from the writer, and from the soldiers’ training. I was indeed also marching with the writer and with the soldiers, and could feel, sense and smell what was happening.

I appreciate the autoethnographic style of writing, and how it collaborated with the description of soldiers looking for their most effective choreography. I particularly liked the point: ‘the (Finnish) military is an example of how to perpetuate a patriarchal system by turning what used to be a site masculinized privilege into a site of feminized marginalization”.

and
"Speaking of a soldier prepared to kill and to die, is to bring war from absence to awareness"
These points are part of the artistic process shown in this exposition.

There is much attention to detail, such as how a water bottle can be a somatic marker, and an important connection between interviewer and interviewee. These details invite us to investigate the athmosphere surrounding the work, to listen nearby instead of listen from afar.

The exposition shows evidence of innovation in content, form and technique in relation to ethnography, dance/somatic/performance studies as well as research on walking . The submission is partly contextualized through the feminist researchers quoted in boxes, partly through the descriptive, and partly through the subjective voice. The methodology is adequate for how the researcher worked with a rather difficult project. I appreciate how the exposition facilitated for readers to stay present in their own bodies, as well as the author’s body, and the soldiers’ bodies.

The design is very easy to follow with boxes shaped like a map. I liked that the sound track was a combination of what I had just read, and what I had just listened to. As if the scene was repeated again, but now with the author in front of the soldier story.  It made me think of Trinh T Minh-ha’s ‘Speak Nearby’. The ethnographic work is innovative – where the author asks questions about a military practice where the killing is only hypothetical, while being outside the field of practice, however slowly working herself in through artistic practices. This is an unusual encounter with the military through embodiment and movement. With the auto-ethnographice voice, the reader knows who to follow. It is a kind and close, empathetic interaction with a group often mythologized.