Lumpna minnen? Materialitet och mentalitet i Armémuseums lumpenenkät

Abstract

Conscription memories: Materiality and mentality in the Swedish Army Museum’s web survey on military service

Following a decision made by the Swedish Riksdag in 2009 to end the century-old system of compulsory military service – by Swedes commonly known as “lumpen” – the Swedish Army Museum two years later launched a large-scale project to collect written and oral memories of former conscripts. One of the main methods in gathering these memoirs was a public web survey entitled "Lumpenminnen,” i.e. “conscription memories.”. When the survey closed in 2014, it had generated more than 2,200 genuine responses.

One of the main purposes behind the survey was to examine the respondents’ recollections of some of the many objects they had encountered during their military service. This article analyses these memories within a theoretical framework provided by the concepts of “material culture” in general and “materiality” in particular. Specifically, it relies on the anthropologist Daniel Miller’s understanding of objects and the use of them as not only a question of function and practicality, but as a process of transferring power relations and of identity-making. From this point of view, the things that we use and wear as professionals as well as in everyday life can be studied as artefacts filled with significance and meaning that can force us into certain mindsets and behaviour.

Interestingly, the survey not only serves to shed light on these often elusive matters, but also lends much support to the assumptions made by researchers such as Miller. In the specific context of “lumpen”, weapons, uniforms and even everyday items such as canned food and underwear clearly played an important role in forming the military mentalities and identities of the conscripts. Many of the respondents in the survey testify that the unavoidable interplay between themselves and their equipment actually changed their ways of thinking and acting.

Much can be said in detail about the ways in which the military apparel seems to have transformed and/or enhanced the conscripts in many different ways, such as the weapon that could give the individual a sense of power and responsibility, or the uniform that could grant him or her qualities of authority and fellowship. But the main point is that this materiality is necessary to take into account in any serious attempt to reconstruct the experiences of military service.