Researching the body – the Body in Research: Reflections on a Participatory Fieldwork in the Danish Army

This paper reflects on themes relevant to scholars doing ethnographic work in empirical settings highly focused on bodily practice. Reflections are presented on what type of material the use of the body in ethnographic fieldwork can lead to and what considerations and restrains it entails, includes considerations on what it means to be a woman doing fieldwork in a setting dominated by men. In all, the paper illustrates how a participatory fieldwork in the Danish army enabled not only embodied experiences of military discipline but equally vital empirical material about how professional ideals and gendered norms are constituted through and in the body of military subjects.