‘My Pink Uniform Shows I am One of Them’: Socio-Cultural Dimensions of German Peacekeeping Missions

Abstract

When I started as a research assistant at the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences in 2003 my fellow anthropologists jokingly said that I had probably found a new ‘tribe’. And indeed, just as during my preceding ethnological field research among ethnic mountain groups in Northern Thailand, I spent my first months in the Bundeswehr projecting myself into a new culture - as an introduction into my later research work on missions abroad: I was confronted with behavioral patterns and norms (still) unknown to me and had to learn during a four-week military training course for civilian personnel to ‘go differently, to stand differently, to talk differently’ - not to mention of military skills. Thus my daily ethnographical research in the deployment areas of the German Armed Forces did not solely involve the Bundeswehr itself, but equally and foremost the peacekeeping contingents, which are known for their interesting sub-cultures, very different to everyday life in Germany. Since the Bundeswehr has been participating in missions abroad only for a bit more than 15 years it is possible to analyze processes related to the establishment of a collective deployment identity as well as mission-specific behavior patterns: Astonishingly a staff sergeant underlined in Kabul that ‘my pink uniform showed I was one of them’ alluding to his washed-out, slightly pink colored tropical uniform deliberately worn by German ISAF soldiers in differentiation to soldiers not belonging to the contingent, who were on a brief visit to the mission countries. The pink-colored uniform is but one of countless examples for cultural innovation by means of multiple processes of identity development in deployment areas. The paper at hand aims at tracing the main features of the dynamics of socio-cultural practice as well as patterns of institutional consolidation of collective identities connected to peacekeeping missions of the Bundeswehr. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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