As Within, So Without: Veteran Identity and Posthuman Alchemical Inquiry
Natalie Danielle Baker, Zeno E. Franco
Journal of Veterans Studies October 13, 2026 DOI: 10.21061/jvs.v12i2.937 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that veteran reintegration is a liminal threshold condition structured by five archetypal dualities, and that peer mentorship can act as an alchemical vessel in which moral injury becomes collective medicine through the Wounded Healer archetype, with veterans crafting "third-path" identities through symbolic bricolage. The authors contend this framing challenges clinical reductionism by centering veteran voice. |
Abstract
This paper reimagines veteran identity through an alchemical and posthuman lens, positioning the warrior’s return as a threshold condition, suspended between military and civilian worlds. Founded on more than a decade of community-based research with veteran peer mentors, we introduce generative AI as a daimonic analytic witness within a liminal epistemology, where threshold consciousness interprets threshold experience. Our analysis reveals five archetypal dualities structuring veteran transformation: trust-mistrust, stigma-witness, liminality-stuckness, power-resistance, and disconnection-connection, mapped onto Jung’s alchemical movements of nigredo, albedo, and rubedo. Because the phenomena under study resist diagnostic and procedural prose, our method must risk an alternative use of scholarly language. Here, prose is part of the inquiry. Findings suggest that peer mentorship operates as an alchemical vessel where moral injury may become collective medicine through the Wounded Healer archetype, as veterans craft third-path identities through symbolic bricolage. This work challenges clinical reductionism by centering veteran voice.