ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

ISSN 2562-9948

by Maximilian C. Forte

Containment and Expropriation: Lockdowns, Public Health, and the Scrap Iron Industry in Trinidad & Tobago

Beginning in July of 2022 a series of articles here and on Disaster X have been examining and questioning what it means to declare crime a “public health emergency”. The case is that of Trinidad & Tobago, which is being used as a lab experiment by US agencies. This is relevant to important new research […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

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 […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Surveillance, Dissent, and Imperialism

The Inner-Outer Dialectic of US Imperialism There are many ways that imperial expansion abroad can tie in with the socio-economic conditions and political relations that primarily pertain to the domestic sector of the imperial state. On the other hand, it is not worth overemphasizing the separation of the “domestic” and “foreign,” a fact widely recognized […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Zero Anthropology: Top Articles for 2013 That You Probably Missed and Shouldn’t Have

This was a year of giant losses, especially with the passing of monumental figures such as Hugo Chávez (March 5) and then Nelson Mandela exactly nine months later (December 5). While Chávez’s successor seems to have rebounded successfully, lengthening his electoral lead in what is already the second election victory for Venezuela’s ruling PSUV since […]

by John Allison

John’s Final Epistle to The Anthropologists, Part II: The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at the Climax of the Neolithic

The New Intelligent Design of Human Society and Anthropology Nobody in the USA or in the UN has proposed a bill – that I am aware of – for The People to vote on the fundamental topics of our era. We need to discuss such notions as whether we want to be competitive troops in a global, […]

by John Allison

John’s Final Epistle to The Anthropologists, Part I: The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at the Climax of the Neolithic

Peeping through a Keyhole, Down upon My Knees We are virtually here to discuss with you something that I would call InTRADOCtrination: Intelligent Design for Retraining the Masses The Mission?: We suggest that it is The Locking-In: The Prison-Industrial Complex, well-documented and contextualized by Angela Davis. In fact, she traces my essay’s central themes. You Say You Want […]

by John Allison

The Ant Problem and Zoosemiotics

I’ve got ants in my kitchen. Now, one cannot allow ants in one’s kitchen. It’s similar to the idea of “national security”: one has to control and keep safe all that is within one’s purview. The kitchen belongs to me; I need it for my “lifestyle”. The ants do too; just like Libyans need Libya, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Anthropology, Global Scouts and Expeditionary Democracy

This and the previous post feature two chapters by Brian Ferguson dealing with the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, and broader issues of militarization, global surveillance, and cultural counterinsurgency that arise. One of the chapters was nearing publication, but the very sad passing of our friend and colleague, Neil L. Whitehead, this past March has […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Global Ethnographic Surveillance

This and the next post feature two chapters by Brian Ferguson dealing with the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, and broader issues of militarization, global surveillance, and cultural counterinsurgency that arise. One of the chapters was nearing publication, but the very sad passing of our friend and colleague, Neil L. Whitehead, this past March has […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #18—Elections, Independence, Counterinsurgency

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period, providing links and representative extracts or key passages from each resource, usually focusing on certain countries/continents and/or processes in each report. The focus of the reports ranges from imperialism discussed in broad strokes, to specific facets of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Fact-Check This Debate: Romney’s Failures versus Obama’s Extreme Revisionism

At one point Barack Obama accused Mitt Romney of taking an airbrush to history. At another point, he said the 1980s called and wanted its foreign policy back. Obama was quick to come to such expressions, being the most valued customer at the airbrush counter and the greatest upholder of U.S. militarism since Reagan, which […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #17—Consequences

Encircling Empire: Report #17—Consequences Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period, providing links and representative extracts or key passages from each resource, usually focusing on certain countries/continents and/or processes in each report. The focus of the reports ranges from imperialism discussed in broad strokes, […]

by John Allison

Separate Realities, Centers of Gravity and Global COIN’s Cultural “Solvent”

Maimana, the capital of Faryab Province, as I photographed part of it in 1969 The new USNATO military base at Maimana. Note the farmland plowed up to prevent approach and to prevent improvised explosive devices to be hidden there by the occupied peoples. Stand back! You are too close. [Note: this article incorporates some text […]

by John Allison

The Fire This Time: COIN Operations, Carquinez Strait, Niger Delta

Imperial violet, the flames licked skyward out of the boiling black smoke engulfing workers and nearby residences, cringing in fear, hearing loud explosions. The giant crude oil refinery and storage tank fire that began on August 6, 2012 was a culmination of a century of social and environmental injustices committed by Chevron against the people […]

by John Allison

The Goat Caught in Bushkazi: Personal Effects of One’s Role in the Great Game

The beginning of this story, for me, was in the spring of 1969. I had applied for funding to do a cutting edge project combining methods and techniques of visual anthropology that I had learned from John Collier, Jr, my own version of cognitive anthropology arising out of the works of Edward Sapir and the […]