Project Dissemination
| 2023
The self-realising soldier
Public Anthropologist
In this blog post, I begin by discussing what other scholars have identified as the “humanitarian soldier”, that is, a moral figure embodying both the humanitarian spirit and military ethos expressed in the post-9/11 “humanitarian wars” and counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan in particular. Drawing on my own research with Norwegian soldiers and veterans, I thereafter identify a new mode of soldiering: the “self-realising soldier” motivated primarily by a desire for adventure, thrill and growth.
Read more at: The self-realising soldier – Public Anthropologist (cmi.no)
War and Fun: Reconceptualizing Warfare and Its Experience (WARFUN)
Apr 2021 - Mar 2026
