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Conscripted Volunteering: An Ethnographic Study of Community Engagement Schemes in the Israeli Military

Objective

Militaries increasingly engage their soldiers in activities framed as ‘community engagement’ or ‘volunteering’, ranging from facilitating activities for children to delivering food to the needy. ‘Conscripted volunteering’, as I term this phenomenon, is part of a broader ‘moralization’ of contemporary society that glorifies ‘volunteering’ as a prominent route for ethical conduct. Under neoliberalism, ‘volunteering’ becomes an object of intensified political interest and promotion. While ‘volunteering’ that is facilitated by militaries can be considered as a means to enhance their public legitimacy, inspired by corporate techniques of reputation management, I propose to analyse it also as a governmentality technique that reinforces the ideological and ethical adherence of soldiers. The proposed research project explores the intensive implementation of ‘conscripted volunteering’ in the Israeli military, a military which is considered a paradigmatic case in studies of armed forces.

The project provides a theoretically-informed, in-depth ethnographic account of a phenomenon that has so far been neglected in the literature. It examines why and how ‘conscripted volunteering’ emerged and became widespread in the Israeli military, how these volunteering schemes are assembled, organised and managed, and how this new type of soldiers’ engagement affects their notions of morality, citizenship and subjecthood. These questions are addressed through in-depth interviews, participant observations and content analysis.

The project uniquely converges the thematic areas of military studies and volunteering research; it brings together the candidate’s expertise in studying the rise of ‘volunteering’ with the host institute’s specialization in anthropology of military and security. The project contributes to the increasing interest in military-civic entanglements, and to the critical analysis of the emergence of ‘volunteering’, and of its causes, meanings and implications.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2016

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 165 598,80
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 165 598,80
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