Comments on: On the Militarization of Anthropology: Report #1 from the CASCA-AES Conference in Vancouver http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/ Turning and turning in the widening gyre | The falcon cannot hear the falconer | Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold | Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world | The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere | The ceremony of innocence is drowned | The best lack all conviction, while the worst | Are full of passionate intensity. -- W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:31:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: How to Get More Frequent Flyer Miles for Your Zombie « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5661 Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:56:49 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5661 [...] Andrew Bacevich, “The Petraeus Doctrine,” The Atlantic, October 2008 — I thank Greg Feldman for underscoring the significance of this point and for highlighting how liberal discourse is used [...]

]]> By: Remix: Introducing Open Source Cinema « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5530 Mon, 25 May 2009 23:21:35 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5530 [...] ethnography, remix by Maximilian Forte One of the side benefits of my recent participation in the CASCA-AES conference in Vancouver was to learn that a phrase I developed as a short hand for some of my own work, [...]

]]> By: “Useless Anthropology”: Strategies for Dealing with the Militarization of the Academy « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5488 Sat, 23 May 2009 05:56:46 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5488 [...] Vancouver on Friday, 15 May, 2009, for a panel organized and chaired by Dr. Greg Feldman titled, “The Use of Culture and Anthropology in Counter-insurgency and Peacekeeping Operations.” The audio copy of this paper may contain minor discrepancies compared with the written versions [...]

]]> By: Canadian Responses to the Militarization and Securitization of Anthropology: Report #2 from the CASCA-AES Conference in Vancouver « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5454 Fri, 22 May 2009 05:52:24 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5454 [...] “Canadian Responses to the Militarization of Anthropology,” which followed from the previous day’s panel (see Report #1). The description of the event as stated in the conference program was as [...]

]]> By: Maximilian Forte http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5452 Fri, 22 May 2009 03:56:41 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5452 Thanks Dan, and instead of drawing away attention from the matter at hand, you instead point out some of the other institutions and discourses that conduct similar campaigns (and hopefully not with the same effects). It’s not a huge leap to go from “humanitarianism” to “health care” and I am sure that in some projects in Afghanistan that those two, plus counterinsurgency, all go together as traveling companions.

]]> By: DeHouser http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5451 Fri, 22 May 2009 02:17:24 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5451 Max,
Very good of you to ‘recreate’ the CASCA session here on the blog. I commented that this particular panel was excellent, as was to be expected. What was not expected was the level of insight that Roberto Gonzalez’s paper brought to bear on counterinsurgency ideologies. This notion of changing ‘entire cultures’ is sadly not unique to military apparatuses; as you may be aware, health care professionals are growing increasingly hip to recruiting anthropologists. It’s seen as ‘sexy’ on one level, and ‘socially responsible’ on another. Last fall, I sat in on a session between social scientists and health care providers in which a (well meaning, I’m sure) care provider posed the question: How do we go about changing culture? From her vantage point, the question was not only pertinent, it was wholly necessary. The very notion that difference could be celebrated (!) is not necessarily compatible with a highly biomedical paradigm. I use this example not to draw attention away from the topic at hand, but rather to illustrate how pervasive (and even, banal) such an ideology can be. If ‘change’ is propogated from the base context of the individual, how far a leap is it to apply to a culture, a society, or a people? I would argue, not far at all.
Dan Houser

]]> By: Maximilian Forte http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5445 Thu, 21 May 2009 00:40:54 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5445 Interesting coincidence: Oscar Salemink attended the first panel that I talked about in this report, and he made the point that since so little of the current counterinsurgency talk is new, that we all ought to revisit the previous phase from the 1960s. He also spoke of how after writing critically about the current war in Afghanistan, in which there are Dutch troops as well, that very soon after a Dutch general contacted him wanting to hear more from him.

That’s a good reference, many thanks for that.

]]> By: Frenchguy http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5444 Wed, 20 May 2009 20:23:36 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5444 Hi Max,
Thanks for sharing that.
I am also looking forward to reading your paper.
A bit tangentially, I was wondering if you had heard of the work of Oscar Salemink, 2003, The ethnography of Vietnam’s central highlanders: a historical contextualization, 1850-1990, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press. Some parts of it are quite relevant to the matter of anthropology, US military and war (a chapter is entitled : “moving the montagnards : the role of anthropology”).

]]> By: Marc Tyrrell http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/05/20/on-the-militarization-of-anthropology-report-1-from-the-casca-aes-conference-in-vancouver/#comment-5441 Wed, 20 May 2009 17:11:16 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=5932#comment-5441 Great report, Max. I’m looking forward to reading your paper when you post it.

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