A Temporary Hometown: Gendered Labor and Social Citizenship in Bremerton, Washington, a Domestic Military Colony

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s application of T. H. Marshall’s tripartite citizenship (2002) informs intersectional understandings of racialized and gendered labor in the historic development of the United States’ imperial colonialism and military industry. Recent place attachment studies challenge assumptions of belonging, home and civic responsibility aligned with social class, while current gentrification and revitalization scholarship reveals neoliberal sustainability practices that maintain unspoken class bias. Social citizenship, gendered labor and vice economy experiences for residents in domestic post-industrial gentrified cities that demonstrate parallels with global US military colonies are not readily documented. This mixed-methods study addresses social construction of home and belonging for residents of a vice labor and military veteran class in Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington, a western US military manufacturing and base city. This thesis seeks to explain how and why some workers and residents in the city of Bremerton, Washington have been historically marginalized, even as their roles, framed as patriotic contributions, have been integral to the socioeconomic efforts and successes of the dominant militarized culture. I explore how study participants make meaning of their experiences – some in gendered and sexualized vice labor in service to military and federal personnel, and some who negotiate social changes after their withdrawal from service in the military – within this community that privileges its military presence and facilities. Demographic data demonstrate the economic and social effects of the city’s federal alliance, illustrating that many residents in the city’s rejuvenation area are not benefitting from an association with the socially enforced militaristic hegemony, either as service workers or as veterans of military service, despite their contributions to the city’s patriotic military alliance. I demonstrate, in conflict with the dominant narrative, the important role a sense of community and belonging play in the lives of participants of this study, indicated by how they view their social and labor contributions to the community, how they negotiate the social hierarchy of the community, and how they envision a future Bremerton that affords them fully applied legal, civil, and social citizenship. This study contributes to multidisciplinary discourses on urban studies, environmental psychology, internal colonialism, and class and gender theory. Keywords: Bremerton, citizenship, gendered labor, home, internal colonialism, place attachment, post-colonial critique, military industry, sexualized labor, vice work