Helen Pringle's short 'The Making of an Australian Civic Identity: The Bodies of Men and the Memory of War' in The Politics of Identity in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1997) edited by Geoffrey Stokes concludes with the statement that
The larger point of this paper is to suggest that war does not rest on the repression of eros or love or passionate attachments, but plays out male desire in the ethical and political ordering of virility as civic identity. The memory of war as constructed in such narratives does not present war as an outpouring of violence, but as tableaux of heroism and self-sacrifice by male bodies - tableaux meant to be repeated and responded to. If we see war simply as violence we risk nailing what Phaedrus would identify for us as the real culprit - love and its sight. A love, that is, among men.For me there are more insights about the 'homosocial turn' in George Mosse's cogent analysis of masculinities, bodies and injury such as The Image of Man: the Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1996) and in Dennis Altman's (Homo)sexual Identities, Queer Theory and Politics' in the Stokes volume.
'Constructing Elite Identities: University Students, Military Masculinity and the Consequences of the Great War in Britain and Germany' by Sonja Levsen in 198(1) Past & Present (2008) 147-183 is slighter but suggestive, as is 'Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity' by Matthew Gutmann in 26 Annual Review of Anthropology (1997) 385-409.
Gutmann offers some tart comments on the social sciences, noting that
Anthropology has always involved men talking to men about men, yet until fairly recently very few within the discipline had truly examined men as men. ['Trafficking'] explores how anthropologists understand, utilize, and debate the category of masculinity by reviewing recent examinations of men as engendered and engendering subjects. Beginning with descriptions of four distinct ways in which masculinity is defined and treated in anthropology, special attention is paid to the relations of difference, inequality, and women to the anthropological study of masculinities, including the awkward avoidance of feminist theory on the part of many anthropologists who study manhood. Specific topics discussed include the diverse cultural economies of masculinity, the notion of cultural regions in relation to images of manhood, male friendship, machismo, masculine embodiment, violence, power, and sexual faultlines.On a lighter note the short article by James Jones on 'Body, Body, Who Gets the Body? The Resolution of Bodily Remains Cases' in 2 Wealth Strategies Journal (2009) asks
What do celebrity Anna Nicole Smith; Godfather of Soul James Brown; baseball immortals Ted Williams and Kirby Puckett; artist Mark Rothko; some United States service members killed in the Iraq War; and even the Reverend and Mrs. Billy Graham have in common? All have been the objects of disputes over who controls final disposition of their mortal remains. Those, in turn, have brought into public scrutiny an ancient legal issue - who decides the place and method of disposal of the bodies of the dead. From antiquity, the law was ordinarily careful to honor the written or oral directions of the deceased. If a decedent did not express a preference, then burial was determined by the surviving spouse, and if there were none by the next of kin. The abstracted article reviews the various disputes involving those listed above, as well as some less famous individuals.Jones comments that lawyers should strongly encourage clients to formally identify their choice for burial arrangements. "Doing so can avoid unseemly post-mortem disputes which can turn what should be a solemn and dignified process into a circus-like sideshow event." Quite.
Matt Mitten's paper 'Legal Issues Arising Out of Blood Testing for Human Growth Hormone' argues that
To date, no US or foreign court or arbitral tribunal has directly considered whether mandatory blood testing of athletes for banned performance-enhancing substances, including synthetic human growth hormone (rhGH), violates any internationally or nationally recognized individual rights to privacy or bodily integrity. To determine how this issue is likely to be resolved in litigation or arbitration, this article reviews the developing U.S. law and private international law established by arbitration awards regarding the legality of drug testing at the various levels of athletic competition as well as the compelled taking and testing of a person’s blood outside the context of athletics.The paper might be read in conjunction with Janwillem Soek's The Strict Liability Principle and the Human Rights of Athletes in Doping Cases (The Hague: Asser 2006). Mitten concludes that
It is probable that one of the first athletes who tests positive for rhGH will question the scientific validity of the testing method and/or the accuracy and reliability of the test results in CAS arbitration, a legal challenge that WADA and the international sports governing bodies must be prepared to defend by proving both requirements are satisfied.The recent mishandling of questions about the status of Casta Semenya does not encourage great confidence in the ability of such sports governing bodies or their respect for human rights.
