Technological Boundaries: Defining the Personal and the Political in Military Mothers' Online Support Forms

Abstract

Mothers throughout history have grappled with the meaning and practice of supporting the (predominantly male) troops. The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought contemporary, local relevance to this historic con- cern as the American public struggles to understand what “supporting” the troops in an unpopular war means. This question is even more acute for military families. In recent wars, the military has mobilized Internet technol- ogy to foster support for troops among U.S. military families, encouraging family members to form online support groups and often providing server space and technological assistance to them (Christensen 2009). By mak- ing it more possible for soldiers to keep in touch with their families in real time, and by allowing soldiers’ families to connect with each other regardless of geographical distance, I argue, the Internet offers new opportunities for channeling support and resistance. In this essay I examine how technology mediates military mothers’ in- teractions in online message forums, mobilizing gender to depoliticize the home front experiences of war mothers and to discourage public dissent among this potentially powerful group. I argue that message board partici- pants and moderators use online technologies to enforce gendered boundar- ies between what is considered “personal” and what is considered “political” in the experience of having a child who is a member of the armed services. The paradoxes of public/private boundaries are especially salient for military mothers, for whom war is both personal/private (they have children who are in the military) and public/political (their own experiences of war are shaped by public political processes). I follow the online interactions of the mothers of U.S. service members to show how online technology facilitates mothers’ shaping and policing of these boundaries.