People

Alice Cree

I recently completed my PhD in Geography at Durham University, with a project titled The Hero, The Monster, The Wife: Geographies of Remaking and Reclaiming the Contemporary Military Hero. This research considered how the sovereign subject of the military ‘hero’ is rendered visible and knowable in popular culture and the everyday, and addressed three main questions: Who is the military hero? What does he represent? And, what are the conditions through which we come to recognise him? Using four diverse ‘sites’ to explore these questions, specifically the Plymouth military community theatre project Boots at the Door, the Invictus Games, Help for Heroes, and the Military Wives Choir, this research makes an important contribution to our understanding of how contemporary war functions. My research maintains a commitment to feminist research practice by placing the ‘everyday’ at the forefront of its concern, and mobilising a more nuanced and intuitive methodological approach to personal and political encounters.  This interest in feminist and creative methodologies is something I would like to take forward in my ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship project at Newcastle, titled ‘Dramatizing the home front: The lively politics of gendered militarism’. This project will seek to explore the critical potential of participatory theatre to address broader debates in military studies. In particular, it will develop my doctoral work with the Plymouth branch of the Military Wives Choir, and consider how participatory community theatre can give flesh to the labour undertaken by women married to servicemen.