Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants—Two Decades On: A Research Note

The choice of our article—Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants—for the 50th anniversary of Armed Forces & Society special issue indicates heightened interest in reserve forces and recognition of their organizational and social uniqueness. At base of our previous publications was an implicit assumption that reservists belong to diverse and representative social and cultural groups. In other words, we did not explicitly address the issues of the social distribution of reservists. In this short piece, we turn that assumption into a variable so that the key questions that arise for further research are “Who serves in the reserves?” and “What are the implications of the social distribution of reservists?” While these questions have been addressed in regard to conscripts and regulars, there is a dearth of relevant studies on reserves. We suggest that this line of analysis further illuminates the complexity of contracts and dynamics between reservists, the military, and the state.