A Canadian anthropological approach to the study of empire and the human condition
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 […]
Read More……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 […]
Read More…When the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) released its “Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program,” in early December of 2009, there was a fair bit of media coverage that zeroed in on one paragraph in particular: When […]
Read More…While still small, the number of YouTube videos that pertain in some way to the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS) is growing, and one can find a neatly arranged selection (which for some reason bears the exact title of one of my articles), on the World News Network. I will focus on only two, […]
Read More…For almost two years we have heard little more than passing statements and speculation about the U.S. Army’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) adopting the “human terrain” concept or deploying human terrain teams in Africa, even if individuals in the Human Terrain System seemed relatively confident this would happen (particularly, Montgomery McFate on the Charlie Rose show […]
Read More…Knee Jerks, and Just Plain Jerks Recently on Savage Minds a number of uninformed assertions have been voiced by some commentators, to the effect that both the Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) and the American Anthropological Association (AAA) instantaneously condemned the Human Terrain System (HTS) in the same month that it was publicly announced, allegedly […]
Read More……continued from Part 1 HTS’ Other Handlers There are those trainers who are not attached to either UNO or the University of Kansas as faculty. One of these, someone who for a while was a student in my department (before I arrived), is Dr. Liam D. Murphy, an anthropologist at California State University-Sacramento, who by […]
Read More…As part of the series designed to “map the terrain” of war corporatism, beginning with charting the private corporations contracted by the Human Terrain System (HTS), corporations with military, intelligence, and other specializations, then examining the various other human terrain efforts outside of HTS, and then generally considering how anthropologists and other social scientists have […]
Read More…US Army Human Terrain System Oddities: Fired in the Field, Promoted at Headquarters by John Stanton 03 May 2010 The Human Terrain Team (HTT) Leader of AF‐1 was removed from his position after a US Army Brigade Commander expressed his concerns to the Human Terrain System (HTS) Program Manager-Forward- Mike Warren. In a meeting with […]
Read More…“The Human Terrain project is fundamentally incompatible with the professional ethics by which we anthropologists live.” From Hugh Gusterson, “Do professional ethics matter in war?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 04 March 2010: ….In the fall of 2007, the executive board of the American Anthropological Association issued an unusually strongly worded statement condemning the Human […]
Read More…Human Terrain Systems Dissenter Resigns, Tells Inside Story of Training’s Heart of Darkness: How U.S. Military Gameplans War on Greens Inside U.S.; “Ethical Concerns” a Bad Joke. By David Price CounterPunch February 15, 2010 I first came into contact with cultural anthropologist John Allison a couple of years ago when he invited me to join […]
Read More…Dedicated to my colleague and comrade, John Stanton, and to myself. “Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair?” This comes from David H. Price, “Anthropologists as Spies,” The Nation, November 2, 2000: Archeologist Joe Watkins, chairman of the ethics committee, believes that if an anthropologist were caught spying today, “the AAA would not do anything […]
Read More…“Rough Terrain,” an article by Vanessa Gezari in the Washington Post (30 Aug. 2009), one of the latest in a series of articles in the mainstream media devoted to the Human Terrain System published over the past two years, introduces us to the figure of “Doc”: Karl Slaikeu, a 64-year-old psychologist and conflict-resolution specialist from […]
Read More…One Canadian Response As part of a broader framework of Canadian responses to the militarization of anthropology, and in particular the potential for American influence in this respect on Canadian anthropology, I am pleased to announce that the subject occupies several pages of the current issue of Culture, the newsletter of the Canadian Anthropology Society […]
Read More…John Postill has posted the transcript of John Gledhill‘s very thoughtful essay, “Anthropology and Espionage,” first produced for BBC3’s radio series, “The Lives of Others,” and I am thankful to John Posthill for first introducing me to this series which has featured a series of prominent anthropologists already. Gledhill, known to many of us as […]
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