US Anthropology is Imperial, not Universal

Part Two of: “Canadian Anthropology or Cultural Imperialism?” Read Part One “today numerous topics directly issuing from the intellectual confrontations relating to the social particularity of American society and of its universities have been imposed, in apparently de-historicized form, upon the whole planet. These commonplaces, in the Aristotelian sense of notions or theses with which […]

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US Anthropology: Political, Professional, Personal, Imperial

Part One of: “Canadian Anthropology or Cultural Imperialism?” Recent events have called into question how a discipline can be commanded on an international plane, and represented in a singular and universal fashion. Those events are useful for inviting meditation on questions of national traditions, the power to globalize a claim to preeminence over other national […]

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Our Report for 2014

This year has seen an almost frenzied escalation of US intervention around the globe, ranging from the determined provocations and threats against Russia and backing a coup in Ukraine while quietly supporting Ukraine’s genocidal warfare in the east of the country, to supporting violent anti-government protesters seeking the overthrow of the elected government of revolutionary […]

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On Eritrea: Cross-Talk Without Dialogue

What follows immediately below is a letter sent to me via email today. Beneath that is my response. Academic Research, Intelligence Gathering, and Character Assassination: Is It the Same Everywhere? We are among an international group of researchers – social scientists, historians, legal scholars and journalists – with decades of experience working on the Horn […]

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Weaponizing Anthropology: An Overview

Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State. By David H. Price. Published by CounterPunch and AK Press, Petrolia and Oakland, CA, 2011. ISBN-13: 9781849350631. 219 pages. For students already in anthropology and those interested in perhaps becoming anthropology students, for those researching the history and political economy of the social sciences, and […]

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Anthropology: The Empire on which the Sun Never Sets (Part 3)

Within the question of the professionalisation of the discipline lies a still largely unexplored area of how Anthropology serves as a western, largely white, middle-class mode of ‘consumption’, specifically the consumption of knowledge about the world that has been ‘appropriately’ filtered, organized, and translated. Of course getting a degree in Anthropology is not just like any other form of consumption, just as it is not merely an expression of curiosity: the process results in formal certification.

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The Motion is Passed: The AAA on SOUTHCOM and Florida International University

In our recent alert, “Further Militarization of the Academy: Florida International University, SOUTHCOM, and Strategic Culture,” we directed attention to the important work of Adrienne Pine in uncovering, analyzing, and criticizing the relationship between the Pentagon’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and Florida International University (FIU). Adrienne’s extensive coverage has continued (see for example her very recent […]

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The Diary of Ted the Tongue: Pinecone Anthropologist

In an earlier article, “More European Press Coverage of the Human Terrain System,” I referred to an article in Germany’s GEO Magazine which carried an extensive article about anthropology and the Human Terrain System, on 05 May 2010, the whole of which can be viewed and downloaded from here, titled “Ein Ethnologe im Krieg.” Online you can […]

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Human Terrain System on War News Radio

The latest media coverage of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS) comes from Kyle Crawford at War News Radio: The Human Terrain. Those interviewed on the program include recently deposed HTS program manager, Steve Fondacaro; Catherine Lutz, Brown University anthropology professor and member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists; Keith Brown, a colleague of […]

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A Major Report of a Minor Exception, or a Minor Report of a Major Problem? The American Anthropological Association’s CEAUSSIC vis-à-vis the Human Terrain System–Part 2

…CONTINUED FROM PART 1 We continue the discussion of the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) which released its “Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program,” in early December of 2009. Though not a comprehensive summary, nor a thorough […]

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