Paint it black: Colours and the social meaning of the battlefield1
| Author | Juha A. Vuori,Xavier Guillaume,Rune S. Andersen |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066115573336 |
| Published date | 01 March 2016 |
| Date | 01 March 2016 |
European Journal of
International Relations
2016, Vol. 22(1) 49 –71
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066115573336
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JR
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Paint it black: Colours and
the social meaning of the
battlefield1
Xavier Guillaume
University of Edinburgh, UK
Rune S. Andersen
Independent researcher
Juha A. Vuori2
University of Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
The modern battlefield is a judicial and social space as well as a spatio-temporal
designation that has evolved through time. In this article, we argue that the shifts in
the social meaning of what the battlefield is — from a ‘deeply social marker of war’s
limitation’ (Mégret, 2011: 133) to a hunting ground of a party over its game — can
be seen in the colour-use on the battlefield. More specifically, we argue that the shift
in the use of colours in military battlefield uniforms, from conspicuously colourful to
camouflaged and blending in or disrupting shapes, can be seen to work as a semiotic
vehicle to understand societal meanings attached to the battlefield. This builds on the
idea that ‘what soldiers wear is central to the public image of the military’ (Tynan, 2013a:
27), to their own modes of being and action, and to the meaning of the battlefield itself.
The most evident reading of this development in colour-use tends to be a functionalist
one, where the development of toned-down colours and camouflage goes along with
technological advances and needs in the face of more and more powerful observation
and targeting tools. We offer another reading. Arguing through a semiotic analysis
of colour-use, we examine colour-use on military battlefield uniforms in light of how
imaginaries and practices of the battlefield evolve.
Keywords
Military, norms, security, uniforms, violence, visuality
Corresponding author:
Xavier Guillaume, University of Edinburgh, 15a George Square, Chrystal Macmillan Building, Edinburgh,
EH89LD, UK.
Email: xavier.guillaume@ed.ac.uk
573336EJT0010.1177/1354066115573336European Journal of International RelationsGuillaume et al.
research-article2015
Article
50 European Journal of International Relations 22(1)
Introduction
Battlefields have been fundamental bearers of, and markers in, discourses and practices
that intimately link up with the central features of the modern concept of war (see Mégret,
2011). Constituted as a mutually agreed ‘space of exceptionality’ within which logistical,
psychological and normative constraints are applied to warfare (Mégret, 2011: 134), bat-
tlefields are filled with symbols, which participate in the delineation of such constraints.
One such example is the distinction between civilians and the military. Yet, battlefields
have always been saturated with visual and phonic symbols, whether in the form of pen-
nants, flags, drums, trumpets, insignias or crests. Contemporary ‘battle spaces’ (Graham,
2009: 279–280) are also saturated with and performed through techno-culturally medi-
ated ways of seeing (Gregory, 2010, 2011). Visual symbols have not only worked to
impress and daunt the enemy, but also enabled coordinated actions within and between
different units and arms, and marked a warrior (later soldier) identity, including class and
race distinctions (Tynan, 2013a), and ethos on the battlefield.
As this history suggests, ‘visuality plays a vital role in both the conduct and rationali-
zation’ (Gregory, 2010: 266) of security practices, including the use of military violence.
Here, colour can be an important visual modality, whereby the use of colour in security
practice is not innocent. Colour is a part of techno-cultural systems, and ‘mangles’
(Pickering, 1995) or ‘entanglements’ of science, art and security (Forsyth, 2014b: 128),
whereby their use is implicated in practices that ‘not only detect objects and people but
also produce’ (Harris, 2006: 102) them with certain statuses and as ‘surveillant subjects’
(Harris, 2006: 102). Colour-use is part and parcel of ‘constructed visibility’ (Rajchman,
1991).
Indeed, colour-use shapes and participates in social imaginaries, which is why their
use needs to be studied systematically as part of an international political sociology. We
can enter such imaginaries through three steps of investigation that become more general
with every step (see Figure 1). First, colours can be a particular visual modality in human
communication (Kress, 2011). Second, colour-use can be a part of systems of significa-
tion that participate in meaning making in certain fields (Barthes, 1973 [1964]). Finally,
colour-use in systems of signification is part of systems of the sensible (Rancière, 2011
[2008]) that modulate what is considered sensible rather than noise, what can be seen and
so on.
As an example of this kind of investigation, we examine the historical evolution of
colour-use in battlefield uniforms. Uniforms are a particularly appropriate focus for such
study as they vest their bearers with normative expectations. Through shifts in the use of
colour, we are able to understand shifts in the societal understanding of battlefields too.
Previous stud ies of battlefields from the 18th to the 20th centuries have tended to make a
false dichotomy between a ‘morale-oriented and a technologically oriented battlefield’
(Phillips, 2011: 569). Indeed, while the use of colour has technological, tactical and practi-
cal implications, we are interested in how colour-use on uniforms participates in the pro-
duction of social imaginaries of battlefields. Battlefields have evolved from close combat
and close combat formations to longer-range and more dispersed formations, which has
been conceptualized in a variety of ways, for example, as a ‘void of the battlefield’ (Philli ps,
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