Rituals of (un)changing masculinity: cohesion or diversity? A study of the fraternization traditions of Swedish cadets’ at the Military Academy

Abstract

This study investigates the cultural expressions of traditional socialization activities that occur in connection with cadets attending the 3-year Officers Programme at Karlberg in Sweden, in order to analyze how masculinity norms in a male-dominated military organization are produced and sustained. A narrative analysis method was used to interpret the meaning of the campus traditions described in interviews made with five cadets together with the student handbook for newly arrived cadets ‘Ruki’. Three distinct traditions were analyzed: ‘The Despicable Philquist’, ‘The Viking Festivity’, and ‘Lifning’. Three themes that describe these traditions, respectively, were identified: separation, homosociality, and fraternization. Separation specifies a formation of a masculine and militarized subjectivity that separates the dichotomous categories of civilian–military. Homosociality describes activities that reproduce masculine norms where men relate to other men. Lastly, fraternization is used to describe socialization activities where the main purpose is to create cohesion. The contribution of this article is that it confirms how performatory rituals in the Military Academy functions to enforce cohesion that is modeled on masculinity norms, while simultaneously identifying a growing dissonance between society’s demands for diversity and the military’s basic aspiration for cohesion.