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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores my experience of the sexualised dynamics of ethnographic fieldwork in arms fairs; theorising my encounter with the deeply patriarchal ‘politics of desire’ that mark corporate defence culture and entangle researcher and research subjects in complex suggested and actual intimacies.

Paper long abstract:

‘Arms fairs’ are exemplary sites for studying the embodiment and materialisation of the global military-industrial complex, holding the spectacular-cum-banal everyday of ‘defence business men’ as they trade military technologies, safely removed from actual battle. Ripe with drones and desires, these sites brim with sexual politics: the sexualised dynamics endemic to corporate defence culture that take on new forms in their encounter with bodies out of place, such as the woman researcher. In this paper I dig into the theoretical, empirical and methodological implications of my experience of the sexual politics of ethnographic research in arms fairs, 2023-2024; as global arms stocks hit “all-time highs” amid the ruination of communities in Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine and beyond. Conducting ‘arms fair fieldwork’ as a young woman is a process of studying-up laden with sexual violence. This violence includes subtle to direct forms of objectification and sexual harassment, denoting the racial, patriarchal and heteronormative ‘politics of desirability’ that structure men’s, women’s and gender non-conforming experiences in this space: ordering each body in a hierarchy of desirable vs undesirable. This politics entangles the woman researcher and her research subjects in complex and precarious intimate dynamics, forcing the former to negotiate a fickle boundary between suggested/potential and actual intimacies; facilitating her own sexualisation while rejecting/resisting actual sexual invitations. What are the ethico-politics of the researcher’s collusion with harmful gender norms during ethnographic fieldwork in studying-up settings? What can the sexual politics of the arms fair tell us about the normalisation of military-industrial interests in contemporary politics?