Explicating Soldierly Work

• In Event: 122 - Regular Session. Ethnomethodology

Abstract

This paper reports on an ethnomethodological study of a ‘friendly fire’ incident – an attack by US pilots on British infantry during the early stages of the Iraq War – approached via the work of the principal military inquiry convened to investigate it – a US Air Force Friendly Fire Investigation Board (FFIB). As in other cases of ‘friendly fire’, this incident raised questions about how war is and ought to be conducted (practically and morally/legally). We are going to look at the way in which a cockpit video of the incident (from the perspective of the pilot who fired on the British) was used in accounts of ‘what happened’ in conjunction with additional testimony. Our interest is in how particular video-commentary ‘pairs’ (Garfinkel 2002) were worked up and used to ground analyses of the ‘soldierly work’ of the pilots. We are not, however, going to offer our own account or set of methods for producing one. Our focus is, instead, the methods these investigators employed to draw conclusions about what had produced this “context for error”. This is instructive in two senses. First, by analysing these investigative practices, local forms of ‘indigenous’ video analysis, we learn something about what is involved in holding military operatives to account (morally, legally, procedurally, etc.) But, second, we also learn about what is involved in opening ‘soldierly work’ up to view, making it account-able, i.e. observable-reportable, and so available for inspection and evaluation in settings like military tribunals, inquests and beyond.

Authors

• Michael Mair, University of Liverpool

• Paul V. Smith, University of Manchester

• Patrick G. Watson, University of Waterloo

• Christopher Elsey, Cardiff University