Beyond the mask: Veterans challenging the strong black woman trope in their journey to heal in the South

Abstract: This dissertation explores Black women Veterans and their connections between place and identity. The purpose of this dissertation is to emphasize notions of citizenship and accessibility as experienced by Black women Veterans. By expanding our worldview of Veteran identity, the ethnographic data demonstrate issues of displacement, alienation, and longing that contribute to the dissonance Black women Veterans rooted in the U.S. South may experience. To forge belonging through place-making, Black women Veterans may seek sisterhood by building sites of resistance in person or online. Findings are based on in-depth interviews with Black women Veterans and participant observation with community partners who service Veteran needs. Furthermore, the outcome of this dissertation considers the possibility of identity and culture as it disrupts the myth of a single Veteran story. This research explores how Black women Veterans conceptualize their identity and how they negotiate their identities. Specifically, this research examines identity in the U.S. South seeking to understand how Black women Veterans develop coping measures when government aid/resources are not enough to meet their needs. Secondly, this research examines how Black women Veterans interact with their spheres of personal and institutional care/support. This study advances theory on critical race, place-making, and somatic ReStorying to disrupt the myth of the white warrior/hero trope that has been accepted as the singular Veteran narrative. Black women Veterans must rely on personal networks of support while negotiating unexpected life circumstances, from their health and transitioning into personal relationships, to transitioning from military life they must contend with daily. Thus, this study utilized ethnographic methods to understand what Black women Veterans want for themselves given their intersectional embodiment—an ontological reality in constant shift. The existing pattern of race and misrecognition underscores the concerning lack of research on Black women Veterans who have experienced trauma, physical, or moral injuries. This research fills a gap and contributes an understanding of how Black women Veterans construct their identities often in oppressive circumstances and spaces, including within the very spaces that they seek to cope and heal.

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