Comments on: Initial Reactions to AAA Report on Anthropologists & Counterinsurgency

By: More News on Anthropology and Counterinsurgency « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY

More News on Anthropology and Counterinsurgency « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:43:58 +0000

[...] the note at the bottom of this previous post as well, about Zenia Helbig’s [...]

By: Maximilian Forte

Maximilian Forte — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:39:06 +0000

For the most part I would agree with much of what you wrote in your last comment. It is not surprising to me that the ethics of research with human populations, especially when that research is conducted in contexts of extreme political violence, unequal power relations, and foreign domination (by a country to which the given anthropologists belong), should so quickly merge ethical and political discussions. I do not see how this can be avoided, or why it should be avoided. The ethics of research involving human populations inevitably stem from some broader moral and political constructs that precede and shape ethics, and that ethical codes carry certain political implications.

In a discipline whose ethical codes have stressed the need for doing no harm, for not damaging the discipline in the eyes of the wider public (lest future generations should face obstacles to doing research), for obtaining informed consent, for negotiating entry, for establishing a productive and mutually beneficial rapport, then clearly participating in a war of domination immediately stands out as a “problem”. How one could then speak of this problem without sounding somehow “political” is not clear, but in any case also not a matter of concern to me personally since I maintain no innocence about being political.

For me, the paramount issue is that Iraqi perspectives are being treated as null and void. It’s not their country apparently, and they have no rights. How one can jump into that situation, indeed, even reinforcing it, and claim there are no ethical considerations to address is quite beyond me.

It’s true that many other associations have no such ethical codes. In some cases, they have none whatsoever. In that case, a broader public that feels harmed by the work of a discipline could impose its own de facto “code” on that discipline in reaction (banishment, perhaps even violence). The AAA is trying to demonstrate that it has a conscience and that it can correct itself.

By: Mr. Roach

Mr. Roach — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:45:03 +0000

I guess i feel like academic inquiry can be put to any use and academics do not have a distinctly academic duty not to share, cooperate, or otherwise disperse their data to governments or anyone else. The whole academic ideal is disinterested. There is no reason anthropology, geography, physics, chemistry or any human or physical science has an ethical code that disallows such use or cooperation, other than in the idiosyncratic and distinctly non-scientific value scheme of any of its participants. I would not begrudge an anthropologist for sitting out one of these operations; but it is an abuse of the concept of academic ethics for professional bodies to make controversial and debatable political preference statements and give them the veneer of ethical standards for the entire enterprise.

By: Maximilian Forte

Maximilian Forte — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:02:13 +0000

Of course the information can be used, and probably will be should the need arise. What the AAA is currently debating is not about preventing the US military from using anthropological knowledge (i.e., that which exists in print, taught in courses, on the Internet, etc.) or what one might call the passive transfer of knowledge, but rather the active involvement of anthropologists in military units, or a direct transfer of knowledge with potentially lethal consequences.

I like your question. It’s not surprising that some officials and community leaders in different parts of the “decolonized” world, labeled paranoid and xenophobic in the past, looked upon foreign anthropologists with great suspicion. The depth and intimate nature of the questions asked by anthropologists could suggest to some a covert attempt to unveil and lay bare all of the inner workings of another society, knowledge that could be of strategic value to certain powers who may be interested in finding ways of sowing dissent within a target nation, for example.

This is a much bigger problem that is being raised: should detailed ethnographies ever be published in a world of brutal geopolitical conflict? I would like to know what you think.

Thanks for posting.

PS: I love your name.

By: Mr. Roach

Mr. Roach — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:53:59 +0000

Why does academic study of people overseas mean that the information can’t be used by anyone who has an interest, including the US military in a war against terrorists?