Small Escapes: Gender, Class, and Material Culture in Great War Internment Camps

TitleSmall Escapes: Gender, Class, and Material Culture in Great War Internment Camps
Publication TypeBook Chapter
Year of Publication2018
AuthorsRachamimov, Iris
EditorAuslander, Leora, and Tara Zahra
Book TitleObjects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement
Pagination166-188
PublisherCornell University Press
CityIthaca, NY
Abstract

This chapter examines the prisoner of war (POW) camps of the First World War that became the temporary homes of officers. POWs creatively sustained prewar class and gender roles through the production and use of domestic objects and clothing in internment camps. Letters of the POW officers portray almost without exception the attempts to structure daily activities according to civilian patterns. Amidst the uncertainties and dislocations of captivity, POW officers and civilian internees relied on artifacts to perform meaningful social scripts and deployed them to articulate a range of emotions and identities. Many of these scripts were aimed at sustaining prewar notions of “normalcy,” “respectability,” and productive masculinity. However, because these social scripts emanated from the prewar bi-gender world, recreating them in one-gender settings often led to transgressions of respectable masculinity.

URLhttps://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2101597
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