ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the experience of soldiering in the liberation struggle shaped (and continues to shape) the DFs’ perceptions of their gendered bodies and the relation of their bodies to the surrounding material and social world. In my analysis, I draw on feminist readings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of “body schema” and “style,” especially the writings of Sara Heinämaa and Johanna Oksala. I show that movement is integral to the conceptualization of the body. Bodies are made in movement; moreover, they generate their own space through movement. This is a crucial point to make considering that in mainstream theories of nationalism, national space is often conceptualized as the static female body while historical time/temporality is theorized as masculine. This chapter questions these dichotomous relationships and shows how DFs negotiate between masculine- and feminine-coded ways of being in the world, moreover, how new meanings and gendered spatialities are generated in the process.
