Report this comment

Comments from the public who have no information on what our Standard of Ethics requires or how we shun ethnocentrism in order to write effective ethnographies are not cogent to our field. Our fieldwork is intense with information on cultures around the world. We aim to do good,even if sometimes we are academic and pedantic in our pursuit.

I knew instinctively that we had no business supporting this initiative and we are not going to be used for purposes other than the precise and empirical observations we do to make this world a better place.

As for the writer and the comments regarding lack of understanding of the Military? We will be more than happy to show you ethnographies of the military. I presume you are interested in the culture of the United States. There you will find that we make no judgments we just present the empirical/observations.

After 40 years it still amazed me how little is known about this field.

Thank you to my colleagues, thank you. We are well aware who wins in a war in the long run. We have thousands of studies of perished cultures to fully understand the impact.

Report this comment

For alot of young anthropologists its a dream job and quite frankly, the AAA is totally irrelavant to them unless universities begin creating legal contracts for graduate students that can result in costly law suits (or nullification of their degree) if they join HTS. If so, most likely the US military simply start their own schools and you would see private anthropological schools emerge as well for the sole purpose of applied anthropology.

Personally I have no problems with HTS as long as they are clearly wearing US military uniforms and not confused with civilian anthropologists. It is covert military anthropology that worries me more and that I can see as being a clear threat to the discipline.
However the fact of the matter is that knowledge is power and the military will pursue that if it means reaching goals mandated to them by our civilian leaders.

What I hope to see as a move more towards making anthropological training as key component of all Army and USMC officer and NCO training. I have no problems with warrior-anthropologists. A warrior who can achieve peace without having to kill anyone is a good thing.

Report this comment

Rick- I agree with you 100%. I am a forensic anth, as previously stated, and as such I fall into the “applied anthropology” category. I have worked crime scenes, CRM, and historic archaeological sites. However, once I started getting paid for my work, and spending my work time preparing reports instead of articles, I became somehow disengaged from the “spirit of anthropology” (as referenced to me at a AAA meeting). Apparently physical anthropology was not considered to be (at least in ’96 when I was told this) truly ethical since we could not get the permission (informed consent) of the families of the victims, or even the victims themselves, to study remains and thus add to the conclusion of a case. It seemed to me at the time to be the deterioration of my field and I have not seen an uplifting movement since. If the AAA cannot resolve its issues with applied anthropology then the field may disintegrate.

However, HTS is not an anthropology program. It employs, according to John Stanton, less than half dozen anthropologists. The program does, according to my colleagues who work in HTS, have an ethics code and provides informed consent for each interview. Given the nature of the places where they work (Iraq and Afghanistan), I do believe that the locals would be able to understand and agree with or disagree with a request to interview- even if surrounded by soldiers. I believe this because I have argued the cases vociferously with my HTS friends and heard about their experiences. Based upon what I have heard and my research (and personal dealings with Iraqis) I believe that the culture itself enables the soldiers to be present w/o creating the inability to provide clear consent. The reason for this is that the culture and nature of the environment is weapons-permissive.

The bottom line is, the AAA CEUSSIC report did not have all their facts straight. The letter they have presented for anthropologists to send to Congress is not accurate. Congress and the US Army are doing their own investigations and audits of the HTS program. Wouldn’t it be prudent to wait and see what they find out before the program is condemned for all time? What will the AAA do next? They have already subtly implied a relative blacklisting of HTS employees. Will they go so far as to encourage professors to black-ball people who have worked for HTS, leave, then try to either finish their degrees (PhD) or work in a university? Will anthropology become a field that more intensely practices the micro-monitoring of colleagues? If the AAA can’t and won’t trust their colleagues in HTS to perform ethically, which job market will be next? And at what point does the field itself reign in the AAA as supposed spokesmen when the AAA encourages other fields to follow their lead? Does the AAA now represent ALL social sciences? I am highly discouraged by the AAA presently and until more facts are out there for review of the HTS program, I’ll hold off any final opinions on their effectiveness or ability to operate ethically. I encourage others to do the same.

Report this comment

1) How do you, as somebody who seems to be working for HTS, think it could be made to run more effectively and less dangerously?

2) Nobody disputes that the kind of reconstruction work done by NATO can be productive in certain ways. What collectively disturbs us is the question of -who- has the capacity to define “what is good for the Afghan people”, particularly in conditions where peoples’ very lives are often assumed as unstable and unprotected.

Report this comment

I’m the author of “Anthropologists without Arms.” Not sure what YAF meant by suggesting that the writings of NCA’s (David Price, Hugh Gusterson, et alia) were “as effective” as “Lucas’s book.” What I would like to point out is that, far from whitewashing HTS, the book reaches two specific conclusions: (1) that AAA should organize something like Doctors Without Borders, an NGO rather than a government-funded organization to provide anthropological expertise (so, Barbara: I agree with your sound suggestion), and (2) that the existing government program, HTS, should be the object of a GAO audit and program review (that proposal was adopted by Congress, by the way).
-George Lucas

Report this comment

That movie “Men Who Stare at Goats,” was based on a real story. I was in army psyop, and it was part of my history. What came of that was 4 vegetarian MRE’s for the field, yoga done at basic training, meditation being taught to airborne infantry at Bragg, etc… If we’ve learned nothing else from resistance theory, its that the flow of information and influence is never one way. The fact that the Army wants anthropologists, and McChrystal states that the number one priority is to limit civilian casualties, is proof of that.

I recommend you read the position paper for 7th psychological ops. group for the late 1970′s, to help destroy your very limited, and wrong stereotypes.

http://www.xeper.org/maquino/nm/MindWar.pdf

“One important characteristic of the sociologists’ group is its explicit and in-your-face politics on behalf of people”

The last thing anyone needs anywhere is a group of privileged, little experience having people yelling. We are cultural translators. It is our job to dispassionately listen to everyone and deconstruct narrative and discourse; to be able to re-translate cultural memes into others. Anger for its own sake is corrosive and dangerous only. If you’re going to be anger, then be angry at something specific that can be changed, not at a symbol or metaphor. Too often I’ve seen people yell for no reason at people trying to help, and end up turning those people off and hurting their own cause.

Report this comment

Report this comment

I didn’t renew this last time it came up. I’ve grown more and more ineffectual at the meager attempt to become more inclusive of applied anthros. We are actually out there trying to do all those things that academics write endlessly about; about what needs to be done, in some self-reaffirming, literary masturbation. We write about ourselves in journal articles, like pompus athletes do when they self-refer in the 3rd person.

At the last SfAA conference, I wasn’t at the point of other professional anthros. who hadn’t renewed in 20 years, but I may get there some day.
I’ve been in the Army, and the last thing they need is less cultural sensitivity. Imagine for a second someone writing an ethnography of opinion about a group without any fieldwork involved, yet this is allowing for the army?

Now I’m working in urban development, and I get shit for that, as though I’m working for the evil “Man.” Yet, all I’ve run into is a strong felt need, and a total vacuum to meet that need. The architects, planners, and engineers in my city have been nothing but ecstatic that I’m able to fill that need for them. We have the head architect for my (major US) city going with his team to low income minority communities and literally going into people’s homes, and inviting them to their office in city hall and asking them what they want in their neighborhoods. We even have citizens collaborating in the actual design process of development in their neighborhoods!!! If I wasn’t there, they’d still want to do something like that, but they wouldn’t know how. So you sit on your asses, and I’ll go help people.
Enjoy writing that article no one is going to read, while I write a report for the city manager, and make more in starting pay then you do after getting tenure.

Report this comment

Report this comment

My understanding is that lack of coercion is basic to informed consent. I don’t see how you can ask to interview someone while surrounded by people with guns in a way that is free from coercion.

Report this comment

But that situation seems different insomuch as there would be no nuclear weapons without physicists while the war in Afghanistan will go on regardless of the participation of anthropologists. I was thinking that a more proper opposite number might be priests objecting to the participation of chaplains in a conflict. Priests often oppose war, but do they do so in this way?

Report this comment

I also don’t agree that “oh well, it’s just like the Yanomamo dealie-o anyway” can be considered a reason to let HTS alone — yikes and double yikes. I’m not worried about the AAA stance on the HTS (or the whole Chagnon-Yanomamo debacle) being arrogant, I’m worried about it being hedged, muddled, and weak.

Report this comment

It also seemed to me that sociologistswithoutborders.org is a better network for disseminating social science news that will be of interest to broader audiences: Chris Kelty’s excellent post on the problem of anthropology journalism come to mind…

Report this comment

As Kathleen suggests, HTS is a surrogate for the war itself, and criticism of HTS will be dismissed as just that – and in fact has been by its supporters.

I’ve wondered if there is another issue here as well: the AAA represents academic anthropologists; practicing and applied anthropologists have long been critical of the AAA for marginalizing this large group of working social scientists – even the Society for Applied Anthropology is dominated by anthropologists whose primary job is in the academy. Given this history and social organization of anthropological labor, is it possible that anthropologists and other social scientists who work for HTS find the AAA stance to be just a little arrogant, and react appropriately? That’s certainly been my impression.

Report this comment