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British Army (british + army)
Selected AbstractsGender and the Limits to Diversity in the Contemporary British ArmyGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 1 2006Rachel Woodward This article considers equal opportunities and diversity management policies in the contemporary British Army for what they indicate, not only about policy frameworks for women's military participation, but also for what they tell us about the construction of ideas about gender and difference within that organization. The article sets out contextual information on women in the British Army and describes the research methodology on which this article is based. It looks at the evolution of equal opportunities policies and the more recent shift towards diversity management policies in the Army, focusing on their contributions towards female equity. The article examines the consequences of the shift towards the management of diversity, noting how embracing the ideas of diversity management is ultimately limited by the Army's construction of female difference. It concludes with a discussion of the issues of female and military specificity in relation to the management of diversity. [source] The Empire's War Recalled: Recent Writing on the Western Front Experience of Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the West IndiesHISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2009John Connor The ninetieth anniversary of the end of the First World War in 2008 was marked with the publication of a number of works in many parts of what was once the British Empire. We saw an increased output in publications on the Western Front. In Britain, the recent literature attempts to rehabilitate Douglas Haig and define the ,learning curve' that enabled the British army to defeat Germany in 1918. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the performance of their soldiers on the Western Front is seen as central to national identity and this now focuses on military success rather than sacrifice in a futile war. In India, South Africa and Jamaica, there is a renewed interest in linking the First World War to national identities based on the independence or liberation struggle. In Ireland, the Great War is seen as a shared experience that can link the Nationalist and Unionist traditions in Northern Ireland and the Republic. The article concludes that this interest in the Western Front will continue into the next decade in the lead-up to the centenary of the First World War. [source] Een-Gonyama Gonyama!: Zulu Origins of the Boy Scout Movement and the Africanisation of Imperial BritainPARLIAMENTARY HISTORY, Issue 1 2008TIMOTHY PARSONS British imperialists in the late 19th century denigrated non-western cultures in rationalising the partition of Africa, but they also had to assimilate African values and traditions to make the imperial system work. The partisans of empire also romanticised non-western cultures to convince the British public to support the imperial enterprise. In doing so, they introduced significant African and Asian elements into British popular culture, thereby refuting the assumption that the empire had little influence on the historical development of metropolitan Britain. Robert Baden-Powell conceived of the Boy Scout movement as a cure for the social instability and potential military weakness of Edwardian Britain. Influenced profoundly by his service as a colonial military officer, Africa loomed large in Baden-Powell's imagination. He was particularly taken with the Zulu. King Cetshwayo's crushing defeat of the British army at Isandhlawana in 1879 fixed their reputation as a ,martial tribe' in the imagination of the British public. Baden-Powell romanticised the Zulus' discipline, and courage, and adapted many of their cultural institutions to scouting. Baden-Powell's appropriation and reinterpretation of African culture illustrates the influence of subject peoples of the empire on metropolitan British politics and society. Scouting's romanticised trappings of African culture captured the imagination of tens of thousands of Edwardian boys and helped make Baden-Powell's organisation the premier uniformed youth movement in Britain. Although confident that they were superior to their African subjects, British politicians, educators, and social reformers agreed with Baden-Powell that ,tribal' Africans preserved many of the manly virtues that had been wiped by the industrial age. [source] | ||||||||||