Becoming a Traitor. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hagström, Linus
• Is Part Of: Life writing. Volume 18:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 135
• Page End: 143
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Resistance -- security -- shame -- traitor; Biography as a literary form -- Periodicals; Autobiography -- Periodicals; 809.93592
• DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2019.1644986
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1448-4528

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this autobiographical essay, I narrate my experience of being positioned in public as naive in my profession and a traitor to my country after publishing an op-ed in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, in which I argued that Sweden should not join NATO — the transatlantic military alliance. Some of the negative reactions came from within my own workplace. I had just been promoted to Professor at the Swedish Defence University and colleagues thought I had also betrayed them and the university by publishing the piece. In this essay, I disclose some of the reactions I encountered but, more importantly, I try to understand the effect they had on me, recounting my own inner dialogue of shame and resistance. At times I worried that I lacked expertise or even secretly harboured an affinity with the country that is now seen to motivate a Swedish NATO membership — i.e. Russia. At other times, I tried to turn the tables on the stigmatisers, claiming that it was they who had to change. While I work in a highly militarised environment, I think the fear of social death and professional shame I explore in this essay has broader resonance.