Belonging in the “Big Picture”

What makes recognition of veterans “authentic,” and how does authentic recognition shape and establish “war veteranship” among wounded veterans? Through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this article explores how Danish wounded veterans experience and evaluate official recognition ceremonies. We demonstrate that recognition ceremonies alone do not establish effective recognition. Rather, for recognition to be perceived as authentic, it must be mutual, grounded in the moral originality of the recognizers, and manifested in words as well as actions. Authentic recognition, we argue, establishes a reciprocal relationship between wounded veterans and the state, which positions veterans as valuable contributors to society. Conversely, the absence of authentic recognition generates experiences of misrecognition and invisibility, leading in some cases to wounded veterans feeling “like immigrants” in their own country.