The case for change: Reimagining research to transform military culture
Publication: Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health
Volume 10, Number 3
LAY SUMMARY
LAY SUMMARY
The research community is encouraged to think about how their work contributes to military culture and how it can contribute to positive change. This article discusses the importance of meaningful inclusion by making stakeholder communities part of the research process: from thinking about the research questions that need to be asked to how research results can be shared and used across academic, government, and community sectors. It is critical to apply best practices that support meaningfully inclusive research, such as Sex and Gender Equity in Research guidelines and Gender-based Analysis Plus. It is also important that the defence research community establish quality assurance in following best practices to positively contribute to military culture change. Other ways in which research can be reimagined to transform military culture include critical methodologies and the co-production of research with affected communities.
Abstract
Military culture change, driven by the imperative of meaningful inclusion of all military members, has been identified by the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces as a key priority. All who participate in defence-related research — especially the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research — have a responsibility to think about what kind of research is needed to support military culture change. The research community is challenged to reflect on taken-for-granted practices and how they might need to be transformed to support change objectives. While reinforcing the critical role of Sex and Gender Equity in Research guidelines and Gender-based Analysis Plus in research, the discussion further emphasizes the required translation of diversity and participation into meaningful inclusion. This article foregrounds the pivotal role of research relationships and the co-creation of knowledge across participants, researchers, and stakeholder communities through accountable engagement at all stages of the research cycle, from conceptualization to the application of resulting knowledge. In summary, conducting meaningfully inclusive research in support of military culture change needs to focus on building community-wide competency and ensuring accountability to those with lived experience.
Résumé
Le ministère de la Défense nationale et les Forces armées canadiennes ont déterminé que le changement culturel, dicté par l’impératif d’inclusion enrichissante de tous les membres militaires, était une priorité importante. Il incombe à toutes les personnes qui participent à la recherche sur la défense – notamment l’Institut canadien de recherche sur la santé des militaires et des vétérans – de réfléchir au type de recherche nécessaire pour soutenir le changement de culture dans l’armée. Le milieu de la recherche est invité à réfléchir aux pratiques tenues pour acquises et aux modifications qui pourraient être nécessaires pour soutenir les objectifs de changement. Tout en renforçant le rôle déterminant des lignes directrices sur l’équité en matière de sexe et de genre en recherche et sur l’analyse comparative entre les sexes Plus en recherche, la discussion fait ressortir l’importance de transposer la diversité et la participation en une inclusion enrichissante. Cet article souligne le rôle crucial des relations en recherche et de la cocréation de connaissances entre les communautés de participant(e)s, de chercheur(e)s et d’intervenant(e)s par des mobilisations responsables à toutes les étapes du cycle de recherche, de la conceptualisation à l’application des connaissances qui en découlent. Bref, la tenue de recherches inclusives pour soutenir le changement de culture militaire doit être orientée vers l’établissement de compétences dans l’ensemble de la communauté et la responsabilité envers les personnes qui ont vécu des expériences.
INTRODUCTION
Military culture change has been identified by the Department of National Defence (DND) and Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a key priority,1 and it is also recognized as such by the Canadian public and many in the military and Veteran community.2 Culture change is required to ensure equity and fairness and to encourage recruitment and retention. It is needed to reduce and effectively respond to psychological and physical harm resulting from sex-, gender-, sexuality-, and race-based discrimination, harassment, and violence. Culture change matters because every Canadian who signs up for military service deserves to feel respected and included.
We believe everyone — individual researchers, the various organizations that comprise the defence research community, and especially the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR) — has a responsibility to think about what kind of research is needed to support military culture change. This will require changes to taken-for-granted practices that have supported the status quo and been left unchallenged or have even contributed to the problematic aspects of military culture, including those rooted in sexism, heteronormativity, colonialism, white privilege, and ableism. In supporting culture change, the research community itself must be willing to reflect on how it, too, might have to change.
Researchers working in military and Veteran health are committed to the quality of their research, and, for most, this means conducting objective research. Yet, in striving to meet this ideal, we risk remaining disconnected from key stakeholders, including those who will be affected by our research. Whose interests does a conventional understanding of objectivity in research serve, and whose truth determines what is objective? Critical scholars argue that research is never 100% objective. Rather, researchers need to reflect on their positionality and how research questions and methods may perpetuate the status quo by privileging certain populations and reinforcing existing power relations.3 Research not only reflects but also potentially reproduces the dominant culture — including the dominant military culture — if it does not set out to explicitly challenge it.4–6
Collectively, we all shape defence-related culture through our research either by reproducing historic biases and blind spots that contribute to the problematic aspects of the culture or by actively helping to dismantle them.7–9 This becomes most evident when we look at how Canadian research on the health and well-being of military members and Veterans has centred the experiences of white, cisgender, heterosexual men, leading to huge gaps in knowledge about the experiences of military and Veteran women and other non-dominant groups.10 In the past, terms such as Veteran, soldier, military member, or military spouse were often used in a way that seemed neutral when, in fact, they were built around the historic white, cisgender, heterosexual military man and his presumed female civilian spouse. We have too often erased differences and made invisible the experiences of those who do not fit the historically constructed norm.7–9
CONDUCT INCLUSIVE RESEARCH: MAKE DIVERSITY MATTER
It is not necessary to study culture change, per se, to contribute to culture change. Regardless of the focus of our research, we can — and must — ask ourselves, how can our research become more inclusive? How can it ensure experiences and voices that have been silenced or marginalized are heard? What will make our research both rigorous and powerfully relevant to culture change?
Our response needs to be about more than “add and stir.”11 Diversity is about us as individuals, and our unique traits, qualities, and characteristics — including our sex, gender, sexuality, and racial or ethnic backgrounds.12 Diversity focuses on representation of individuals. Inclusion is about valuing the experiences and insights that diversity brings.13 In addition to diversity among those who participate in research, the research community itself needs to become more diverse and inclusive. Without diversity among us, our ability to achieve meaningful inclusion in research will remain limited. Different bodies can be included to increase diversity, but if the conditions are not set to facilitate meaningful contributions, change will be limited, or at best sluggish, with little power to sustain culture change. True systemic change needs to happen for meaningful inclusion of diverse people and to ensure equity. We already know this statement to be true for DND/CAF, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC). It is also true for the defence research community. Inclusive research is research that can produce and support culture change across the research ecosystem. Inclusive research requires more than adding diverse researchers and participants; it requires systemic change in the research community and its practices.
MAINSTREAM BEST PRACTICES AND ESTABLISH QUALITY ASSURANCE
Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) is a vital tool for understanding inequities resulting from “intersections of different social locations, power relations, and experiences.”13(p. 2) GBA Plus is powered by critical theories, including intersectional theory, which was first proposed by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her analysis of the distortion and erasure of the experience of Black women in sex discrimination cases.14 Intersectional theory has particular relevance to culture change and the role of research as it seeks social justice through transformation and coalition building among different groups. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of considering one’s own positionality, including social position, role, and power.13(p. 3) There is limited evidence to date that intersectional approaches are institutionalized in military and Veteran research in ways that could ensure meaningful processes to negotiate with affected communities regarding the most appropriate research questions, research designs, and communications strategies.7
As most are aware, the first essential step to make research more inclusive and supportive of culture change within the military is to adopt tools such as GBA Plus or to follow Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines.7,15–17 The SAGER guidelines are international guidelines for academic research and peer review. They state, for example, that research should be designed and reported in ways that can reveal potential sex-related and gender-related differences.17 In 2020, CIMVHR and VAC committed to adopting SAGER guidelines,18,19 and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) has recognized the potential for integrating the SAGER guidelines with GBA Plus. Despite the recent adoption of SAGER guidelines, and increasingly of GBA Plus, there is a lack of researcher training, subject matter expertise, and capacity building and, most important, little to no quality assurance, accountability, or proper oversight. Too often, for example, we face barriers to implementing these guidelines beyond superficial, often dichotomous, identity markers. This represents a failed opportunity for deeper learning about practices of racialization and gendering.20 Additional systemic barriers to equity, diversity, and inclusion exist across the Canadian research ecosystem. These barriers include practices of performativity and tokenism, when inclusion in research is performed in a perfunctory or symbolic manner.21 These are community challenges, and they require community solutions and leadership to overcome. These are areas in which CIMVHR could do more to educate and monitor and, in doing so, could positively contribute to culture change in the defence research community.
Inclusive research requires a redesign of defence-related research, beginning with stock taking and analysis of research conducted so far. What questions have been asked, how have they been investigated, and who has and has not been meaningfully included? That is, whose experience has shaped research knowledge?7 We need to build on existing best practices, learn from challenges, and develop strategic ways to leverage expertise and fill knowledge gaps. Research can also advance military culture change by seeking to understand and monitor how military members are affected by culture. Quantitative approaches can be valuable and are often relied on to measure military culture and culture change.22 However, in ensuring meaningful inclusion of all voices, it is imperative to continuously push methodological boundaries to address those areas traditional methods have been unable to.23 This includes methodologies with the power to reveal understanding of lived experiences, which are both unique and shared across intersectional identities and across time and space. We need methodologies that can help us understand how institutional ideology creates and reinforces social relations of power.23 Storytelling, encouraged by Indigenous research methods, is one such approach.24 Institutional ethnography, autoethnography, narrative analysis,23 transdisciplinarity, feminist, anti-oppressive, and participatory action research are additional examples of methodological approaches with potential to generate new insights and contribute to change.3 Giving voice to lived experience is often required to help those in the dominant culture and in decision-making positions — those without the relevant lived experience — to understand, feel, and act on what is needed for culture change in terms of resources, funding, policies, and programming. In this sense, the goal is not to measure the impact or effectiveness of existing programs and policy but to determine how they can be shaped, re-conceptualized, and re-imagined to provide a more inclusive experience for all.
RECONSIDER RESEARCH CULTURES AND RELATIONSHIPS TO MAKE THEM INCLUSIVE
Research ecosystems are made up of individuals at all levels and across many organizations — research leaders, research participants, students, trainees, faculty, administrators, research funding agencies, and policy makers.21 The defence research ecosystem also includes stakeholder communities working with, or within, government departments and agencies, including DND/CAF, VAC, the RCMP, and CIMVHR. We need to reconsider research relationships and shift from the assumption that knowledge is created by researchers to redefining knowledge as a process of co-creation and co-production among researchers, affected communities, and knowledge users.25,26,27 Inclusive research seeks the meaningful engagement of and, potentially, co-partnership with, as many people with lived experience as possible. Study participants not only provide data but can also be engaged and partnered with in each phase of a research process.3
The latest version of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans reiterates existing best practices for participatory research that include the co-design, co-development, and co-authorship of research findings.27 The Canadian Institutes for Health Research is in the process of developing a framework and action plan to advance the practice of knowledge mobilization, building on the integrated knowledge translation process it has applied since 2012.28 CIMVHR established numerous funding and research partnerships,29 DRDC entered into an inter-agency collaborative agreement with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council,30 and DND established the Mobilizing Insights in National Defence and Security program to solicit external contributions to address defence challenges.31 These are important examples of initiatives to bridge gaps in knowledge development strategy; however, there is no formal strategy or action plan for knowledge mobilization and inclusion that engages all who conduct and are affected by defence research. Moving forward, we need to consider the development of an institutional and community-wide paradigm for military and Veteran research that is inclusive and holistic and integrates GBA Plus in meaningful ways. Research should consider, without exception, trauma-informed and “nothing about us, without us” approaches. Such approaches are already commonplace for civilian research involving communities of persons with disabilities,32 medical patients,33 and Indigenous people,31,34 and they should be extended to military and Veteran research as well.35
Culture is dynamic and will continue to present opportunities and challenges for people and organizations in the defence sector and beyond. Each of us can make a difference by bringing critical awareness about ourselves and our work to the research process. Research and research relationships can be reconceptualized to create knowledge that contributes to culture change. We can work to maintain the integrity of research as valid knowledge while at the same time making research a driving piece of the change process and amplifying the voices of those who participate. This is about building competency, not expertise. People should not be afraid to make mistakes or ask questions. As researchers, we keep learning from our mistakes, our experiences, and our academic and community collaborators. Our collective effort to apply the tools available from the inception of research to its translation into policy and programming will help us produce more inclusive research. Inclusive research can provide a robust foundation for culture change; however, in doing so, it is time to critically review the depth and scope of what is required to conduct inclusive research. Everyone reading this article can help with the changes needed — researchers, government practitioners, and service providers, as well as military members, Veterans, and their families — by demanding more of researchers. We all have a role to play in research that supports military culture change.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to the reviewers for their valuable suggestions and to Kimberley Smith-Evans for her editorial assistance.
REGISTRY AND REGISTRATION NO. OF THE STUDY/TRIAL
N/A
ANIMAL STUDIES
N/A
PEER REVIEW
This article has been peer reviewed.
REFERENCES
1.
Government of Canada. CDS/DM initiating directive on conduct and culture change [Internet]. Ottawa: Department of National Defence; 2021[cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/policies-standards/dm-cds-directives/cds-dm-initiating-directive-professional-conduct-culture.html
2.
Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Eliminating sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces: Report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, 43rd Parl, 2nd Sess (June 2021) (Chair: M Gladu). Available from: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/432/FEWO/Reports/RP11424392/feworp10/feworp10-e.pdf
3.
Reid C, Greaves L, Kirby S. Experience research social change: critical methods. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 2017.
4.
Feagin JR. The white racial frame: centuries of racial framing and counter framing. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge; 2020.
5.
Bastien F, Coraiola DM, Foster WM. Indigenous people and organization studies. Organ Stud. 2022;44(4):659–75.
6.
Friedl KE. Biases of the incumbents: what if we were integrating men into a women’s army? Mil Rev. 2016; March-April:69–75.
7.
Eichler M. Equity in military and veteran research: why it is essential to integrate an intersectional sex and gender lens. J Mil Veteran Fam Health. 2021;7(1):143–49.
8.
Eichler M. Administrative tribunals and equity: military sexual assault survivors at the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. Can Public Administr/Administr publique Can. 2021;64(2):279–300.
9.
Eichler M. Seeing sex, gender, and intersectionality in military, veteran, and family health research. J Mil Veteran Fam Health. 2021;7(s1):1–2.
10.
Eichler M, Poole M, Smith-Evans K, et al. Advancing Canadian research on servicewomen and women veterans. Halifax (NS): Centre for Social Innovation and Community Engagement in Military Affairs; 2022 Nov.
11.
Eichler M. Add female veterans and stir? A feminist perspective on gendering Veterans research. Armed Forces Soc. 2017;43(4):674–94.
12.
Foldy EG ‘Managing’ diversity: identity and power in organizations. In: Aaltio I, Mills AJ, editors. Gender, identity and the culture of organizations. London and New York: Routledge; 2002. p. 92–112.
13.
Hankivsky O. Intersectionality 101 [Internet]. Vancouver: Simon Fraser University, Institute for Intersectionality Research & Policy; 2014 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://bccampus.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Hankivsky-Intersectionality101-2014.pdf
14.
Crenshaw K. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination, doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. Univers Chicago Leg Forum. 1989;1(8):139–167.
15.
Government of Canada. Gender-based analysis plus (GBA Plus) [Internet]. Ottawa: Women and Gender Equality Canada; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://women-gender-equality.canada.ca/en/gender-based-analysis-plus.html
16.
Government of Canada. CIHR GBA plus framework [Internet]. Ottawa: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/50970.html
17.
Heidari S, Babor TF, De Castro P, et al. Sex and gender equity in research: rationale for SAGER guidelines and recommended us. Res Integrity Peer Rev. 2016;1(2):1–9.
18.
Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. Sex and gender [Internet]; Symposium; 2020 Oct 8 [cited 2023 Jun 25]; virtual. Available from: https://symposium-series.cimvhr.ca/en/2020/sex-gender.
19.
Veterans Affairs Canada. Virtual series — Women Veterans’ forum update and LGBTQ2+ Veterans roundtable [Internet]. Charlottetown (PE): Veterans Affairs Canada; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/about-vac/what-we-do/women-LGBTQ2/veteran-engagement/virtual-series-faq
20.
George T. Race and belonging. In Edgar A, Mangat R, Momani B, editors. Strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces through diversity and inclusion. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; 2020. p. 114–134.
21.
Government of Canada. Best practices in equity, diversity and inclusion research practice and design [Internet]. Ottawa: Canada Research Coordinating Committee, New Frontiers in Research Fund; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/nfrf-fnfr/edi-eng.aspx#4
22.
Davis KD. Socio-cultural dynamics in gender and military contexts: seeking and understanding change. J Mil Veteran Fam Health. 2022;8(1):66–74.
23.
Taber N. Institutional ethnography, autoethnography, and narrative: an argument for incorporating multiple methodologies. Qual Res. 2010;10(1):5–25.
24.
Datta R. Traditional storytelling: an effective Indigenous research methodology and its implications for environmental research. AlterNative: Internation J Indigen Peoples. 2018;14(1):35–44.
25.
Ozanne JL, Davis B, Murray JB, et al. Assessing the societal impact of research: the relational engagement approach. JPPM. 2017;36(1):1–14.
26.
Canadian Institutes for Health Research. Guide to knowledge translation planning at CIHR: integrated and end-of-grant approaches [Internet]. Ottawa: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; 2012 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/documents/kt_lm_ktplan-en.pdf
27.
Government of Canada. Tri-Council Policy Statement: ethical conduct for research involving humans [Internet]. Ottawa: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique_tcps2-eptc2_2022.html
28.
Canadian Institutes for Health Research. Knowledge mobilization [Internet]. Ottawa: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/29529.html
29.
Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. Partnerships [Internet]. Kingston (ON): Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research; 2024 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://cimvhr.ca/partners/
30.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Department of National Defence Research Initiative [Internet]. Ottawa: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/dnd-eng.aspx
31.
Government of Canada. Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) [Internet]. Ottawa: Government of Canada; 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/programs/minds.html
32.
Charlton, JI. Nothing about us without us: disability oppression and empowerment. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2000.
33.
Canadian Medical Association. Patient voice [Internet]. Ottawa: Canadian Medical Association; 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://www.cma.ca/get-involved/patient-voice
34.
First Nations Information Governance Centre. The First Nations principles of OCAP [Internet]. Akwesasne (ON): First Nations Information Government Centre; 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: https://fnigc.ca/ocap-training/
35.
Military Woman. Nothing about us without us! Esprit de Corps Magazine [Internet]. 2021 Jul 15 [cited 2023 Jun 25]. Available from: http://espritdecorps.ca/military-woman/nothing-about-us-without-us
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health
Volume 10 • Number 3 • June 2024
Pages: 153 - 158
Copyright
The publisher holds the copyright for the article.
History
Published in print: June 2024
Published ahead of print: 10 June 2024
Published online: 27 June 2024
Key Words:
Mots-clés :
Authors
Contributors
Conceptualization: KD Davis and M Eichler
Writing — Original Draft: KD Davis and M Eichler
Writing — Review & Editing: KD Davis and M Eichler
Competing Interests
The authors have nothing to disclose.
Funding
No funding was received for this article.
Ethics Approval
Ethics approval was not required for this article.
Informed Consent
N/A
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Related Content
Citations
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Download article citation data for:
Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health 2024 10:3, 153-158
Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health 2024 10:3, 153-158