Can Soldiers Build Peace? A Human Science Approach to Understanding Canadian Soldiers’ Experiences in Peace Operations Deployments
Creary, Patlee. Peace Research 50, no. 1 (2018): 27–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44873802.
This study investigates soldiers’ lived experiences to improve the effectiveness of military peace operations. This study utilises hermeneutic phenomenology, which explores how individual narratives and experience of the world impact choices. The lived experiences and stories of the soldiers’ sheds light on their attitudes towards peacebuilding, and some of their informal peacebuilding roles. Interactions with locals whilst deployed led to the humanisation of civilians and suggested that the soldiers carry out informal third-party peacebuilding functions that require multiple skills. However, many of the soldiers retain their warrior-like identity, and reject the peacekeeper, constabulary-like, identity that is required on peace operations. Instead, their explanation of the human-centric skills utilised in interactions with locals was due to military professionalism. The success of military peacekeeping intervention depends on a positive perception by the local population, so formalising a peacekeeper identity, and encouraging positive interaction with the community may be an important inclusion in training, and peace operations. In conclusion, this study finds that individual identity has the power to shape the outcome of peace operations.