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39 Armed Forces & Soc'y 5 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/amdfcsad39 and id is 1 raw text is: Articles Ambivalence on the Front Lines: Perceptions of Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan Armed Forces & Society 39(1) 5-27 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1 177/0095327X12441322 http://afs.sagepub.com OSAGE Ryan Kelty' and Alex Bierman2 Abstract In the past several decades, the US military has increasingly relied on civilian con- tractors to provide a variety of core functions. Lagging behind this increased reliance on contractors is an understanding of how the presence of contractors influences civilian and military personnel. This research addresses this question using a unique study of US Department of Army civilians and military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. We find a substantial degree of ambivalence among both groups regarding the impact of contractors on the military and comparisons with con- tractors, but we also find a noticeable trend of comparative discontent beneath this apparent ambivalence. Results are discussed in the context of using ambivalence as a starting point for building a theoretical approach to more systematically under- standing the role and effects of contractor integration in the military. Keywords civilian contractors, outsourcing, military, ambivalence, Iraq, Afghanistan ' Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Washington College, Chestertown, MD, USA 2 Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada Corresponding Author: Ryan Kelty, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, 221 Goldstein Hall, Washington College, Chestertown, MD 21620, USA Email: Rkelty2@washcoll.edu