I published an article in the French journal Les Champs de Mars about the challenges of conducting qualitative research in a military environment. You can download the article (in French) here, and I reproduce the abstract below.
“Conducting a scientific research in a military environment reinforces the traditional challenges of social science research, but few epistemological and methodological discussions of this issue are available. This article’s objective is threefold. First, it aims at exploring the issue of data collection in a French, foreign or multinational military environment. Second, it explores the specific place of the researcher in such an environment. Third, it evaluates the quality of the data gathered in this context. The article discusses issues such as access to archives, interviews or the observation of practices and argues that combining this variety of approaches (methodological triangulation) is a satisfying way to collect data fit for the researcher’s particular project”.
Olivier Schmitt 