To best understand how contemporary military welfare systems are working or failing, and where they are going in the future, we must first understand where they came from and how they got to where they are today. To do this we require historical underpinning.
Establishedin 2019, the Military Welfare History Network provides a networking and dissemination platform for scholars who are research active in military welfare history. Something that has heretofore been lacking, despite the existence of several societies and network that focus on the research of war or more specifically veterans and their families.
Research can relate to any chronological period, ranging from antiquity to the contemporary, and can be conducted by scholars from the arts, humanities and social science research, globally. This comprises work on state and non-state welfare provisions, perceptions, organisations and policies relating to service personnel, both serving and discharged, and their families and other dependants, and even representations of military welfare. This network seeks to bring together scholars in this unique yet diverse area of research, which spans the:
- social history of the military
- military history
- critical military studies
- military sociology
- welfare history
- gender history
- arts and cultures studies
- the study of civil-military relations
and beyond, to promote their research, to expand their networks and to develop new and exciting collaborations.
The Military Welfare History Network is an international collective of academic researchers and scholars who undertake the historical study of the social, economic and medical programs or provisions afforded by state and non-state actors to active service personnel, service families, veterans and their families, and widows and orphans.
Together, Members and Affiliates are sharing their immense expertise; developing research consortia, publications and projects; and endeavouring to develop this immensely diverse and important interdisciplinary field of research, education and public policy.
Although history is at the heart of the network and membership largely comprises researchers in History departments, this is not just a venture for historians. MWHN membership is also drawn from French, Modern Languages and European Studies, Photography and Political Science departments and backgrounds, and from Museums and Archives, and independent scholars. Members The Network is also open to any perspective of the historical past, from Antiquity, through the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, to the Modern and Contemporary periods.
These activities are undertaken by its 260-plus members, who are based in over 160 Higher Education Institutions in 31 different countries around the world, and in association with a score of affiliated journals, museums, research centres, projects, and organisations.
The Military Welfare History Network provides fact-based, critical historical analysis of military welfare, benefits and provisions for those in uniform and their families. It also uses this methodology to evaluate and influence contemporary military and civilian systems of welfare and care and social policies.
To learn more about the members of the Network, the affiliated journals, research centres museums and projects, the Network’s outputs, events and activities, please follow the links below:
If you or your organisation researches or provides welfare, care or medical provisions relating to armed forces personnel or their families in or across any geographical or cultural space, chronology, or thematic area, from a historical perspective, then the Military Welfare History Network would like to work with you.
If you are a researcher or scholar who engages with any of the above-mentioned topics or themes and would like to join the Network, simply contact the Coordinator today.
militarywelfarehistory.com 