ISSN 2562-9948
(Part 1) (Part 2) Complying with “Counter-Terrorism,” Practicing Domestic Counterinsurgency Canada has a very long history of practicing various forms of counterinsurgency (military, political, and even religious), first against Indigenous Peoples, then against the citizens of other nations such as Afghanistan, and now against its own citizens at home. The place that inspired Apartheid, has […]
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(Part 1) Taking Hostages: Research Funding to “Prevent Terrorism” Earlier this year, on January 25, 2012, Canada’s rather infamous and unpopular Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, announced the first call for proposals for the Kanishka Project, “a multi-year investment in terrorism-focused research by the Government of Canada”. (It’s somehow both chilling and comical: that […]
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Insidious Security Recently I was contacted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), to serve as a peer reviewer for research grant proposals submitted under the new “Connection Program”. Having publicly criticized the structure and uneven geographical and institutional distribution of SSHRC funding in the past (see [1], [2], [3], [4]), […]
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…The U.S. Social Science Research Council has launched a series of articles in a special section of its website devoted to what it calls the Minerva Controversy. Among them is Hugh Gusterson’s “Unveiling Minerva.” This is a list of some of the key points he makes in his article: (1) Gusterson persuasively likens Pentagon funding […]
Read More…In the Washington Post article for which I was interviewed (I am the “but”, appropriately at the end), there was a suggestion that a project critical of U.S. foreign policy should be submitted to test the openness of the Minerva Research Initiative and its Pentagon-funded counterpart at the National Science Foundation. I do not recall […]
Read More…A new article on the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative is out now, by Maria Glod in The Washington Post, Sunday, August 3, 2008, titled “Military’s Social Science Grants Raise Alarm.”
Read More…Thinking about Hugh Gusterson’s “The U.S. Military’s Quest to Weaponize Culture” prompted me to consider some current developments, as reported by various news agencies and one think tank, as indications of new conditions of knowledge production and the kinds of pressures and constraints orienting social science research toward specific ends. For some these are “constraints,” […]
Read More…This report in WIRED titled, “Anthropologists Launch ‘Human Terrain’ Probe” by David Axe was just published today. According to the reporter, “The American Anthropological Association, which represents some 10,000 social scientists, has launched a formal study of the Army’s controversial, year-old ‘Human Terrain System,’ which embeds civilian anthropologists in combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan.” […]
Read More…Thanks to David Glenn of The Chronicle of Higher Education for writing to indicate that what some hoped for would be leeway in undertaking funded research free of constraints and conditions imposed by the Department of Defense, has been significantly minimized. As David Glenn explained, the National Science Foundation released its Minerva-related solicitation on Wednesday, […]
Read More…This is a continuation of a series of articles on social science research funding in Canada (1, 2, 3, 4), with the aim being to produce some form of provisional closure before I turn my attention to other issues. In the long run, however, it will be important to get a more complete sense of […]
Read More…The Limitations of Blogging about SSHRC Blogging about complex topics about which little has been researched and published obviously confronts and presents some serious limitations. I am referring here to the previous post on funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Trying to understand, let alone convey, the complexities of shifting […]
Read More…Despite the broad sweep of the title of this post, this is most definitely not a detailed historical overview and statistical analysis of the current state of research funding for the social sciences in Canada. As this post goes through various stages of revision, some of these details and relevant documents will possibly be added. […]
Read More…I am thinking that the next time I get a research grant, I should get a baseball cap with a big gold dollar sign on it, and take the award letter, miniaturize it, gold plate it, and hang it from a big ass gold chain around my fat neck. Why not? I would only be […]
Read More…The following are two very similar statements that I am posting here for archival purposes, especially since I seem to continually misplace them in my own files and they are starting to vanish from the Internet. ********** Posted by the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association (CSAA) SSHRC Transformation – Commentary and discussion pages Maximilian Forte, […]
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 