ABSTRACT
This chapter advances embodiment as both a research topic and a method in the military humanities. Embodied experiences of servicemembers have been explored in a wide range of disciplines, yet embodiment in war and military training has not been viewed as a coherent field of inquiry. Drawing on a hermeneutic approach, the chapter highlights the centrality of exploration and the ways in which the researcher's embodied experiences may serve as a methodological tool for interpretation. The main part of the chapter consists of the authors’ auto-reflection on their own and each other’s publications, elaborating on how embodiment, first, has guided their research processes, and second, affects the reading itself. The findings show that the author’s own experiences of intimacy and emotional understandings served as methodological foci and returned as analytical themes in their empirical studies. The findings and developed approach have implications for the military humanities, as they offer new ways to inquire into and understand the military profession and servicemembers’ experiences. By foregrounding the life-worlds of servicemembers, the findings also have implications for servicemembers themselves, highlighting the ever-present human needs that military organizations ought to include in their understandings of personnel.
