Roberto Gonzalez – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

David Price interviews Roberto González on the Human Terrain System

The interview below was reproduced with the permission of Dr. David Price, from CounterPunch (03 February 2009). In connection with this post, see also: AMERICAN COUNTERINSURGENCY, by Roberto J. González (U. Chicago Press, 2009) Counterinsurgency, Anthropology and Disciplinary Complicity By DAVID PRICE During the spring and summer of 2007 word began circulating of a new military […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

AMERICAN COUNTERINSURGENCY, by Roberto J. González (U. Chicago Press, 2009)

(…apparently, this is another “Counterinsurgency Day” on Open! (A)nthropology…) Like all counterinsurgency projects, it is designed to control or suppress popular movements. This runs completely counter to normal anthropological approaches which seek to bridge societies by promoting cross-cultural understanding. You can be a counterinsurgent, or you can be an anthropologist, but you can’t be both. […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

David Price: The Leaky Ship of the Human Terrain System

CounterPunch http://www.counterpunch.org/price12122008.html [with minor edits for this blog and added empases] [Thanks to David Price for sending me this and other articles.] December 12 / 14, 2008 First Read of a Leaked Handbook The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems By DAVID PRICE Human Terrain Systems, one of the U.S. military’s key counterinsurgency efforts to […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Pentagon’s Culture Wars: An Article in NATURE for Oct. 2008

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 […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

“Anthropology, the Military, and War”: Panel at the AAA

Anthropology, the Military, and War 22 November 2008 04:00 PM – 05:45 PM Type: Session Organizer: Phillips Stevens Chair: Phillips Stevens Participants: Roberto Gonzalez | Montgomery McFate | Brian Selmeski | Kerry Fosher | Abstract: Consonant with the theme of the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), “Inclusion, Collaboration & Engagement,” this […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Secrecy, Anonymity, Spying, and Lying: An Overview of the “Ethics” of HTS Infiltration (1.2)

Sir: In his war address to Congress, President Wilson dealt at great length on the theory that only autocracies maintain spies; that these are not needed in democracies. At the time that the President made this statement, the Government of the United States had in its employ spies of unknown number. I am not concerned […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency: Paper Abstracts

Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency is the title of a very interesting conference that is about to take place at the University of Chicago. It will be extremely disappointing if the conference organizers and/or participants decide not to make their papers available on the Web, given both the timeliness of the conference and the fact that […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

“Anthropologists on the Front Lines”

More damage done to the reputation of American, and perhaps all other anthropology, as news of anthropological support for American “pacification” efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to gain attention in now almost all of the main US and international media. The latest, from TIME Magazine: Academic conferences tend to be fairly sedate affairs, at […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Montgomery McFate: The New Heroine for a Collapsing Discipline (1.1)

[see “Me so horny, me love you long time”: The Phallo-Fascism of a Vainglorious Anthropologist in the Academilitary] …in a decaying hegemomic power, I might add. I just finished reading through one example of what will surely become a more visible, more audible set of apologia in anthropology for the work of the likes of […]