I’ve been having a difficult time talking about the role of anthropology in war because two sides of my anthropological brain are fighting with each other. On the one hand I have the Parsonian side attempting to articulate the universal norms which aught to govern the behavior of anthropologists. On the other side I have the Gramscian side looking at the specifics of this administration and this war, refusing to get dragged into universalizing discourses that deflect attention from the current political realities.
On the Parsonian side I’ve been following with interest recent discussions about IRB and our ethical obligations as anthropologists, etc. In this vein I understand exactly when Rex says things like “as a Christian” even though he isn’t one. These arguments are useful because they get at the heart of what it means to behave properly as a human, as well as the necessity (or lack thereof) of institutional norms to govern such behavior within our discipline. In this vein it seems that the ultimate question about the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS) isn’t whether it is a good thing or not, but whether they should be able to use the term anthropologists to describe what they do, and conversely, whether those who wish to call themselves anthropologists should be allowed to do what they do.
The Gramscian side, however, rebells against attempts to discuss this in terms of narrow institutional norms. This isn’t just any war, and we aren’t just any people. We come to this discussion already dripping with the sediment of history. Rex isn’t any more Christian than George Bush is Muslim and these differences do matter for how we understand our current predicament.
In Iraq I firmly believe that the continued presence of US forces is a bad thing. I believe it is too late for us to make a positive difference by adopting more culturally sensitive policies. I also believe that the vast majority of our political and military leadership have already come to this conclusion as well. I won’t attempt to defend this statement here (I don’t think this is the right forum for such a debate), but I recommend that anyone who disagrees takes the time to read through what Kevin Drum, blogger on The Washington Monthly has said on this topic. Suffice to say that holding these beliefs I am unable to see HTS as anything other than a publicity stunt. At least as far as Iraq is concerned. I’m more ambivalent about the role of HTS in Afghanistan, but I also don’t think it will do much good there unless we pull out of Iraq.
In such a framework, it isn’t just “anthropology” as a general category that we are talking about. It is American anthropology after the Cold War. This is a war fought by people who endorse degrading Islam as an interrogation technique, who in the days after the invasion saw fit to protect the oil ministry but not the national museum, and who fire much needed interpreters for being gay. Like the boy who cried wolf, it is hard to take them seriously when they suddenly proclaim an interest in cultural sensitivity. I’m much more inclined to see HTS as something akin to the recent “surge” which was little more than a slight increase in the number of troops in Baghdad (where the “success” of ethnic cleansing was already reducing levels of violence). The main purpose of the surge was as a publicity campaign to provide cover for Congress to continue funding the war, and HTS smells just as fishy to me.
The Parsonian in me argues back that institutions aren’t monolithic, that there is room for a certain amount of autonomy even within the military. The HTS folks insist that soldiers on the ground find their services useful, shouldn’t that be enough for us to wish them luck? Maybe, as long as they don’t call it anthropology, I want to add… Why shouldn’t the army have some kind of cultural advisors on board? Maybe we could even call them “translators” if that isn’t too “gay”? Besides, HTS isn’t just about this war, but about a new way of waging war. This argument is not dissimilar from that of Said’s critics who say that Orientalism wasn’t just about Western hegemony, but was also about a genuine urge to knowledge. In the introduction to Orientalism Said says that one statement does not preclude the other and that both can be true at the same time.
In the end don’t think we need a Grand Unified Theory of the role of anthropology in the military. We need to be sensitive to both the issues relating to institutional norms and those specific to the current historical situation (you can even call it an “assemblage” if you must). But I do think we must be careful about exactly which discussion we are having. My feeling is that the Gramscian arguments don’t really adequately address the Parsonian questions, and vice-versa as well.
Just a quick note.
Richard Schweder has an op-ed in the NYT today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/opinion/27shweder.html. He comes out mildly in favor of using “cultural translators.” Then again, he also thinks that maybe it would be a good thing for the US to act like the Ottoman Empire, which “lasted a much longer time than the British Empire in part because they had a brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. They did not try to impose their values on others. Instead, they made room — their famous “millet system” — for cultural pluralism, leaving each ethnic and religious group to control its own territory and at liberty to carry forward its distinctive way of life.”
That said, I often find myself in a similar kind of argument (with myself) as Kerim. To be honest, however, my Gramscian side tends to win out.
Thanks for this Kerim — I think we both agree: most of the important ethical questions about the war in Iraq have to do with deep personal convictions, not necessarily anthropological ones. (and btw, you’re theory about how we don’t need a big theory — you realize that _is_ a big theory, right 😛 )
The issue, as I see it, is how these wider (and deeper) ethical issues are ‘passed down’ into the more restricted realm of our professional ethics. The problem with anthropologists, as I see it, is that we have developed a very ‘thin’ professional ethics to accommodate the wide range of viewpoints within our discipline. Oneman would claim our ethics are sufficiently ‘thick’ that we could reach consensus on this. I hope this is true but I am not optimistic.
I’m not an Ottoman expert, but then again neither is Schweder, so here goes: the Ottoman empire managed to maintain the balance of power between European powers (esp. Prussia and Russia) in a way that convinced them to keep it around. Is HTS going to do this for the US? Pffft.
Rex,
My problem with the thick/thin distinction is that I I don’t think the differences are a matter of degree but a matter of type: social norms vs. institutional/procedural norms. We have a shared social norm of democracy but we implement these norms differently in each of our institutions (indeed some institutions, like the military, have rejected those norms altogether as inappropriate for their membership). As I have implied in a few posts (including this one) but perhaps never said clearly, I think we have to carefully consider whether our institutional norms and those of the military are sufficiently compatible that someone can abide by the institutional norms of both organizations without violating one or the other. I don’t think it is possible, which is why I don’t think anthropologists in the military should be called “anthropologists.” I worry that if we allow them to claim the authority of our professional institution it will undermine the legitimacy of those norms.
At the same time, I do think it is possible for someone to share my social norms and work in an institution with very different institutional norms. I have good friends who were Marines and they are some of the most upstanding people I’ve ever met in my life. I believe this is partially because of their socialization into the Marines (even though my friends were very critical of that socialization process). And I can see how an anthropologist might wish to take up work in the military to support certain beliefs they have about what an applied anthropology should look like. But I still don’t think that what they do in the military should be called anthropology, unless extra care is made to ensure that they conform to the norms of our profession, and I don’t see such extra care in HTS program.