Unconventional Combat Intersectional Action in the Veterans' Peace Movement

In recent decades, there has been a generational shift of the US veterans' peace movement, from one grounded mostly in the experiences of older white men of the Vietnam War era, to one informed by a young, diverse cohort of post-9/11 veterans. In Unconventional Combat, Michael A. Messner traces this transformation through the life-history interviews of six veterans of color to show how their experiences of sexual and gender harassment, sexual assault, racist and homophobic abuse during their military service has shaped their political views and action. Drawing upon participant observation with the Veterans For Peace and About Face organizations and interviews with older male veterans as his backdrop, Messner shows how veterans' military experiences form their collective "situated knowledge" of intersecting oppressions. This knowledge, Messner argues, further shapes their intersectional praxis, which promises to transform the veterans' peace movement and potentially link their anti-militarist work with other movement groups working for change. As intersectionality has increasingly become central to the conversation on social movements, Unconventional Combat is not only a story about the US veterans' peace movement, but it also offers broad relevance to the larger world of social justice activism.

Michael A. Messner is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of several books, including Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women (Oxford University Press, 2015) and, most recently, Guys Like Me: Five wars, Five Veterans for Peace (2019). His honors include the Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women's Law Center, the Feminist Mentoring Award from the Sociologists for Women in Society, and the Jessie Bernard Award, presented by the American Sociological Association in recognition of contributions to the understanding of women's lives.