Current Research

The current research of the Centre focuses on:

  • Sex, gender, and intersectionality in military and veteran life
  • Transforming military cultures
  • Military sexual violence
  • Community-engaged research on war and peace
  • Feminist perspectives on Canadian defence and foreign policy

Many related publications are available for download on Dr. Eichler’s academia webpage.

Sex, Gender, and Intersectionality in Military and Veteran Life

This research focuses on developing an intersectional sex and gender analysis of military-to-civilian transition and integrating an intersectional sex and gender lens into military and veteran research and policy in Canada. Centre research in this area was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant and has resulted in several publications, including “Making Military and Veteran Women (In)Visible,” “Equity in Military and Veteran Health Research,“ “Add Female Veterans and Stir? A Feminist Perspective on Gendering Veterans Research,” and “Gender in Veteran Reintegration and Transition: A Scoping Review.” Dr. Eichler also spoke about the importance of integrating a sex and gender lens into veteran research and policy at the inaugural Women Veterans Forum that took place in Charlottetown, PEI, in May 2019. With Sayward Montague (Advocacy Chair, National Association of Federal Retirees) and Major (Retired) Karen Breeck MD (Federation of Medical Women of Canada), Dr. Eichler co-chairs the Women Veterans Research and Engagement Network (WREN). In 2022, Dr. Eichler led research funded by CIMVHR True Patriot Love Research Initiative on Advancing Canadian Research on Servicewomen and Women Veterans. The final report is available in both English and in French (translated); an infographic was developed based on this report that is also available in both English and French.

The Centre engages in a range of international, national, and local collaborations. Internationally, Dr. Eichler has an ongoing collaboration with Dr. S. Bulmer of the University of Exeter on theoretically-driven and comparative research on veterans. In 2017, they published “Unmaking Militarized Masculinity: Veterans and the Project of Military-to-Civilian Transition.” Nationally, Dr. Eichler participates in research projects administered by the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, such as recently completed projects on the importance for the Canadian Armed Forces to integrate GBA+ into military-to-civilian transition, health and well-being of veterans undergoing military-to-civilian transitions, and the impact of operational stress injuries on the health and well-being of military families. She also contributes to veteran-driven research, for example, through her two book chapters in Treated Like a Liability: Veterans Running Battles with the Government of Canada, edited by veteran advocates David MacLeod and Harold Leduc. As part of the regional and local areas of focus, the Centre participates in the Atlantic Network for the Study of Civilians, Soldiers, and Society through research on veterans and others impacted by war in Atlantic Canada.

Transforming Military Cultures

The Transforming Military Cultures (TMC) Network, a collaborative network funded by the Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) program, is headquartered at the Centre for Social Innovation and Community Engagement in Military Affairs (SICEMA). TMC, co-directed by Drs. Maya Eichler, Tammy George, and Nancy Taber, is a network of Canadian and international academic researchers, defence scientists, military members, veterans, and people with relevant lived experience who are collaborating to challenge, reimagine, and transform the Canadian Armed Forces culture into one that embraces inclusivity and difference. The Network employs an anti-oppression framework in drawing on diverse critical perspectives and international lessons learned. TMC activities aim to determine the root causes of the problematic military culture and provide practical insights to help transform Canadian Armed Forces culture into one that serves the future needs of Canada and Canadians.

The TMC Network regularly publishes TMC outputs on its website, including working papers, resources, recordings of TMC events, and TMC member presentations and publications.

Military Sexual Violence

This research is driven by ongoing policy and public debate on how to adequately respond to military sexual violence in Canada and how to advance military gender integration more broadly. Dr. Eichler has published several chapters and articles on the topic, such as “Military Sexual Violence in Canada” and “Learning from the Deschamps Report: Why Military and Veteran Researchers Ought to Pay Attention to Gender”. In 2020, she edited a special issue on “Gender and the Canadian Armed Forces” for Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice. Dr. Eichler has also co-written several Op-Ed pieces on the topic of military culture and sexual misconduct with Marie-Claude Gagnon from It’s Just 700 (IJ700) and with Dr. Karen Breeck from the Women Veterans Research and Engagement Network (WREN). The Centre holds a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant with IJ700 focused on “Identifying barriers and improving access to benefits for survivors of military sexual assault.” This collaboration led to the 2021 article titled, “Administrative Tribunals and the Issue of Equity: Military Sexual Assault Survivors at the Veterans Review and Appeal Board,” which won the J.E. Hodgetts Award for the finest article in English appearing in the Canadian Public Administration journal.

On June 27, 2023, Dr. Eichler, together with Christine Wood, Nadine Schultz-Nielsen, and Karen Breeck, spoke at the panel, “Canadian Sexual Misconduct Class Action: Lessons Learnt,” for the International Colloquium on Military Sexual and Other forms of Abuse of the Australasian Services Care Network.

Community-Engaged Research on War and Peace

In Fall 2014, the new cross-departmental Mount Network for Community-Engaged Research on War (NCERW) was initiated by Dr. Eichler. NCERW brings together faculty and students working in the area of military and war studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

NCERW developed the idea for an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and community-engaged research project on the theme of community stories of war and peace. The interest lies in

  • probing into what stories of war and peace are being told in our communities,
  • identifying which stories are more visible and which are marginalized, and
  • examining how war has affected the diverse fabric of Nova Scotia communities.

In April 2016, NCERW held a workshop dedicated to “Community Stories of War and Peace”. The workshop was the first step in developing a long-term research project on sharing community stories of war and peace to challenge and expand current Canadian narratives of war. In September 2016, NCERW was invited to participate in the Prismatic Arts Festival, where Dr. Eichler and local artist Jessica Lynn Wiebe performed “The Weight We Share“. A reflection on their performance was published in Critical Military Studies under the title “The Art of Discomfort: Engaging in Dialogue on War.” In 2017, NCERW presented a series of lectures, in collaboration with community groups and Halifax Public Libraries, that explored the impact of war and conflict on our diverse communities. Currently, NCERW is working on an edited collection entitled In Many Voices: Community Stories of War and Peace in Nova Scotia, focusing on the experiences of diverse Nova Scotia communities with issues of war and peace. The collection was published by Nimbus Publishing in November 2022.

Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Defence and Foreign Policy

This research focuses on, and aims to inform, ongoing efforts to integrate gender and intersectional perspectives into Canadian defence and foreign policy. Examples are Dr. Eichler’s contribution to the National Defence Policy Review in 2016 and her 2020 chapter, “How Gender Became a Defence Issue,” in Turbulent Times, Transformational Possibilities?, edited by A. Dobrowolsky and F. MacDonald. Dr. Eichler also led the GBA+ (gender-based analysis plus) team of the DND MINDS-funded Defence and Security Foresight Group (DSFG), a collaborative network of defence scholars in Canada. The GBA+ team of the DSFG developed resources for defence researchers, such as a “GBA+ toolkit” and “What is GBA+?” to help build capacity for integrating an intersectional sex and gender lens into Canadian defence research and policy.