ISSN 2562-9948
Two articles to which I want to draw attention discuss the important issues of research methodology for anthropologists studying NATO and the U.S. military. For those who do not have paid access to these publications, I will summarize some of the key points. Secondly, I will make some additional comments for those interested in pursuing […]
Read More…Adding far more detail to what was discussed in the last post, “Justifying Corporate Welfare for the Military: What the Logic Sounds Like,” the following is Hugh Gusterson‘s article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published 29 October 2010. An open letter to the Tea Party BY HUGH GUSTERSON | 29 OCTOBER 2010 Congratulations […]
Read More…Continuing from the last item on this topic, the following are more examples of recent European press coverage of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System and its embedding of civilian social scientists in counterinsurgency missions. One thing that immediately stands out from most of these articles is the emphasis not on “civilian social scientists,” but […]
Read More…From the Homeland Security Act of 2002: “The Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, shall designate a university-based center or several university-based centers for homeland security. The purpose of the center or these centers shall be to establish a coordinated, university-based system to enhance the nation’s homeland security.” Uniform “Research” We […]
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…Over 470 reports have been published online concerning the relationships between anthropology, other parts of academia, and the military and intelligence agencies since 2001. The items covered here consist of online publications of the mainstream and alternative media, documents online referred to by journalists, statements and reports from professional associations, and journal publications by some […]
Read More…Here is a medley of updates concerning previous posts on this blog: Concerning Montgomery McFate’s doctoral dissertation: Montgomery McFate’s PhD dissertation (when she was Montgomery Cybele Carlough) has been digitized in its entirety and is available for download by persons using libraries with subscriptions to ProQuest. What follows are some of the significant details about […]
Read More…More U.S. troops to Afghanistan? Why the war in Afghanistan cannot be won By Hugh Gusterson | 21 September 2009 [reproduced with the permission of the author] A number of commentators have remarked of late on the ominous parallels between the situation in Afghanistan today and the quagmire in Vietnam in the 1960s: “The war […]
Read More…I presented the paper below, “(Re)Imperializing Anthropology and Decolonizing Knowledge Production,” at the 8th Annual Critical Race and Anti-colonial Studies Conference of Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equality (R.A.C.E.), held at Ryerson University in Toronto, 14-16 November, 2008. Almost a year has passed since I promised to post it here, and I suspect that […]
Read More…An increasing number of audio recordings of conference proceedings and media interviews are being made available that deal specifically with the relationships between anthropology, the military, and the national security state. What follows is just a short selection of what is currently available. ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲ BBC Radio 4: Anthropology at War __________________________ Reconsidering American Power A […]
Read More…March was one of this blog’s busiest months, with the second highest number of overall views since the blog started, averaging at 729 per day. Two of the main themes concerned academic freedom, especially with coverage of Ward Churchill’s wrongful termination suit against the University of Colorado, and more discussion of global militarization. The links […]
Read More…Dr. David Vine is a professor of anthropology at American University in Washington D.C. whose ethnographic research has focused on the impact of U.S. military bases and in particular the forced displacement of the Chagossian people from their home, the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. His new book, Island of Shame (Princeton […]
Read More…How the U.S. colonizes the world through the installation of military bases: From the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/empire-of-bases Empire of Bases By Hugh Gusterson | 10 March 2009 Before reading this article, try to answer this question: How many military bases does the United States have in other countries: a) 100; b) 300; c) […]
Read More…I am very happy to report that the second of three new volumes about the human terrain system to be published this year has just been released for pre-order. It is The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual, by the Network of Concerned Anthropologists. It features contributions by Catherine Besteman, Andrew Bickford, Greg Feldman, Roberto J. González, Hugh Gusterson, […]
Read More…Sharon Weinberger’s article in Nature is behind a pay wall. I will provide some extracts and summaries below. The title of the article is “Military Research: The Pentagon’s Culture Wars” and was published online in Nature News on October 1, 2008 (complete details can be found on the Bibliography page). ••••••• Weinberger’s article, like so […]
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 