Swedish families' responses to military deployment

This study examines emergent responses in Swedish families when a family member working in the Swedish Armed Forces get deployed in an international military operation. A descriptive design encompassing eight years of dialogical participatory action research was used. During this period, 110 adults and 25 children participated in individual and/or group dialogical interviews. Qualitative content analysis was applied and emergent suggestions were subsequently validated in dialogues with participants. This eventually resulted in six ideal types of responses: Partnership; Supporting and mobilizing; Normalizing – ordinary life; Adjusting and negotiating; Emotional reacting; Suffering. The types, recognized by participating family members, including the soldiers, emerge as a matrix for the narrations of experiences and connected responses to the deployment. The Swedish families reject the notion that the general concept of military families captured ‘who we are’. We discuss the meaning of this in the context of organization (the Swedish Armed Forces) and society (family, government/politics).