Anthropology (catch all)

[skiguy]

What's a FID campaign? (and what is FID an acronym for?)

[Steve Blair]

Foreign Internal Defense, if my acronym memory serves.

[SteveMetz]

Foreign Internal Defense, if my acronym memory serves.

Yep. See Joint Publication 3-07.1, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Foreign Internal Defense (FID), April 2004.

[selil]

Oooh Boy the guns are aimed at the academics today.

Well us Academics are smarter than the military types. Y'all go to Leavenworth Kansas, We (or I) on the other hand am currently in Key West. So while I'm sipping on my Margarita in Margaritaville consider the following.

1) How can an academic use primary source material that is banned or controlled by security mechanisms?

2) In academia we want to see real research that is peer reviewed and military types not volunteering for that service at conferences will keep the truck bogged down.

3) When I ask about going to Iraq to look at how military types are handling digital "evidence" guess what the answer is.... And, I've been shot at before.

4) Do you really want somebody like me who can piece together evidence from disparate sources and synthesize uncontrolled data sources into information you want to control, but can't?

5) Is it really research when a third party gets to vote on it's content? If I have to pay my way to the combat zone, take all the risks, have little to no support, and be shunned the entire time you can dang well bet I ain't going to be interested in approval before publication.

Oh look my drink is empty... toodles

[SteveMetz]

Oooh Boy the guns are aimed at the academics today.

Well us Academics are smarter than the military types. Y'all go to Leavenworth Kansas, We (or I) on the other hand am currently in Key West. So while I'm sipping on my Margarita in Margaritaville consider the following.

1) How can an academic use primary source material that is banned or controlled by security mechanisms?

2) In academia we want to see real research that is peer reviewed and military types not volunteering for that service at conferences will keep the truck bogged down.

3) When I ask about going to Iraq to look at how military types are handling digital "evidence" guess what the answer is.... And, I've been shot at before.

4) Do you really want somebody like me who can piece together evidence from disparate sources and synthesize uncontrolled data sources into information you want to control, but can't?

5) Is it really research when a third party gets to vote on it's content? If I have to pay my way to the combat zone, take all the risks, have little to no support, and be shunned the entire time you can dang well bet I ain't going to be interested in approval before publication.

Oh look my drink is empty... toodles

My slam about primary sources had nothing to do with controlled or classified material, but with stuff that was easily available if the author had done the work. I recently reviewed a book manuscript by a well known British political scientist (which has since been published despite the fact that I slammed it) which had NO primary source citations in the entire thing. Even when he discussed a study by my research institute, rather than look at the study itself (which is available on the web) he instead cited a newspaper which talked about the study.


"Peer review" is kind of a sham when all the peers suffer the same pathologies. It's kind of like expecting balanced policies from the House of Lords.

(I'm not quite sure to make of the statement, "Well us Academics are smarter than the military types. Y'all go to Leavenworth Kansas, We (or I) on the other hand am currently in Key West." After all,there are crack dealers who can make the same statement.)

[selil]

The crack was in regards to this thread (CLICK HERE) and I guess we can dispense with any humor.

So, let's consider your thesis that academics don't use primary source material and little if any of material when it is available.

You failed to answer any of my salient points to the discussion but let's look at your thesis.

The broad brush of over generalization not withstanding what and when do you use primary source material. Any good police officer will tell you that a witness is likely the worst primary source for an incident because they carry all of the associated filters and emotional impact of a crime. Police like to find cameras or other less emotional recording instruments and rely on forensics to insure the story matches the facts.

Where should we find these primary sources in the military world where they won't be filtered through the eyes of those who would control that same information as "sensitive but unclassified" or "no foreign agents". You immediately suggest "your" institute as the paragon of material to be provided yet what is the academic rigor you apply to your material. You claim that academic peer review fails at the task yet it works. What do you have to replace it?

I'm no apologist for the academic malfeasances found in pandering the same ideas over and over again in widening circles of non-critical pantheism. In a world where stepping to the edge of a new idea is career suicide I have a tendency to leap. The scientific principles and academic principles are closely aligned and to throw them out with zero suggestion of a better course that will be at least as critical is a red herring and intellectually dishonest. Academics evaluate and rate others research based on not just publication but the data and methods used to gather it. That being said you would not attempt to apply rigor or objectivity to a "news paper" article, but you might ignore a "report" if it might be construed to have that rigor where it doesn't exist. A consistent criticism of the military and government publications is that review of "scientific" materials is not done with rigor.

Academia has specific and concrete issues with government and military entities. Pure research and military needs are not closely aligned and what people in the military really want is expertise on tap for exploitation. What researchers want is access to data and opportunities to conduct or observe subjects. As an academician I'm bound by rules and laws that say I can't do certain things ever in that role. University research review boards (IRB) have fairly stringent rules on the social sciences and their conduct. Lucky for me personally though described as a scientist I'm actually a technologist.

That technologist label is interesting because it is where the glue between fanciful research and absolute application resides. We make things happen in my case with computers that make people nervous. Application of ideas and publication of results allows us to be more stringent in our world view. In the last few years I've enjoyed funding as a tertiary funded individual because I could accomplish that interface of specific expertise that was needed. The primary investigator was being asked to do something that they were ill equipped to accomplish. Not to fault the investigator but the expectations of either party involved were not aligned correctly.

Much of the issue I think with the softer sciences is this misalignment of expectation between what either side is looking for out of the other.

[SteveMetz]

The crack was in regards to this thread (CLICK HERE) and I guess we can dispense with any humor.

So, let's consider your thesis that academics don't use primary source material and little if any of material when it is available.

You failed to answer any of my salient points to the discussion but let's look at your thesis.

The broad brush of over generalization not withstanding what and when do you use primary source material. Any good police officer will tell you that a witness is likely the worst primary source for an incident because they carry all of the associated filters and emotional impact of a crime. Police like to find cameras or other less emotional recording instruments and rely on forensics to insure the story matches the facts.

Where should we find these primary sources in the military world where they won't be filtered through the eyes of those who would control that same information as "sensitive but unclassified" or "no foreign agents". You immediately suggest "your" institute as the paragon of material to be provided yet what is the academic rigor you apply to your material. You claim that academic peer review fails at the task yet it works. What do you have to replace it?

I'm no apologist for the academic malfeasances found in pandering the same ideas over and over again in widening circles of non-critical pantheism. In a world where stepping to the edge of a new idea is career suicide I have a tendency to leap. The scientific principles and academic principles are closely aligned and to throw them out with zero suggestion of a better course that will be at least as critical is a red herring and intellectually dishonest. Academics evaluate and rate others research based on not just publication but the data and methods used to gather it. That being said you would not attempt to apply rigor or objectivity to a "news paper" article, but you might ignore a "report" if it might be construed to have that rigor where it doesn't exist. A consistent criticism of the military and government publications is that review of "scientific" materials is not done with rigor.

Academia has specific and concrete issues with government and military entities. Pure research and military needs are not closely aligned and what people in the military really want is expertise on tap for exploitation. What researchers want is access to data and opportunities to conduct or observe subjects. As an academician I'm bound by rules and laws that say I can't do certain things ever in that role. University research review boards (IRB) have fairly stringent rules on the social sciences and their conduct. Lucky for me personally though described as a scientist I'm actually a technologist.

That technologist label is interesting because it is where the glue between fanciful research and absolute application resides. We make things happen in my case with computers that make people nervous. Application of ideas and publication of results allows us to be more stringent in our world view. In the last few years I've enjoyed funding as a tertiary funded individual because I could accomplish that interface of specific expertise that was needed. The primary investigator was being asked to do something that they were ill equipped to accomplish. Not to fault the investigator but the expectations of either party involved were not aligned correctly.

Much of the issue I think with the softer sciences is this misalignment of expectation between what either side is looking for out of the other.

I wasn't drawing generalizations but commenting on the field I'm part of and know fairly well--strategic and national security policy studies. I think your suggestion that primary source documents are unreliable and tainted is a red herring. I find it a bit hard to believe that something an academic said citing another academic citing another academic is more authoritative than the actual documents that the long skein of academics is referring to. To give a more concrete example, I've seen major conference papers on the National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy that give no indication that the author had read said documents, but only what other people said about them.

Is it "exploitation" when defense leaders and policymakers would like to be informed by policy relevant academic analysis? I guess so. But by the same token, students are also exploiting academics. And, equally, academics are exploiting the policymakers which they use as resources.

Personally, I think there is a middle ground between academics being the unwitting tool of policymakers and academic insisting on being policy irrelevant. That's all I'm looking for. And in my experience, academia still suffers from a Vietnam hangover that leads many of its members to lean far toward policy irrelevance.

[Mark O'Neill]

But I am inclined to side with Steve here.

I am 2.5 years of part time study into my PhD related to COIN and Strategy. I have read and continue to drown in what I regard as an alarming number of books , journal articles, newspaper articles, other thesis and dissertations and our own and allied military doctrine publications.

A large percentage (exceeding 60% - ball park figure) of the matter appears written by authors blissfully ignorant of what would routinely be regarded as the basis of 'foundation' knowledge in the area. There is little of no citation of primary source material, or even reputable secondary source material. Where primary sources are used, there frequently is scant evidence of critical evaluation of of the source or material presented. For example, a quote form an interview subject is summarily unadorned by analysis for bias or context and presented as fact.

The technique of assertion based reasoning is alive and well - we all know that one - someone asserts an unproven viewpoint, and by repetition and persistant referral throughout the text (without ever actually verifying it), behold - by the end of the text is is an 'unassailable fact'.

To be fair, it is not just academics who do this. Amongst the biggest offenders are journalists turned academics or even worse , journalists / columnists who are bitten by the military bug (although they patently would have had trouble gaining entry to a JROTC program) and who write with the assuredness (and language) of a three combat tour veteran about a world that they will never really be a member of. ( A good example of this was posted on these pages just recently concerning an article about Africa in Esquire..)

Soldiers such as my self are equally bad in our own way. One example of this - we tend to mistake our conviction about something for the 'sole' truth and that leads us sometimes (ok, often!) to ignore wider alternatives. This is because we have been trained / inculcated to have an inordinate amount of self-confidence and belief (necessary for our primary work, perhaps not so useful at all times when trying to write reasoned, balanced arguments).

I think part of the problem is that there are relatively few people who are practitioners of military and strategic arts, and even fewer who are 'educated' in them (as opposed to trained). Of his relatively small group, only a few are inclined to put pen to paper in order to argue and reason things through.

The reasons for this are many - a common one is disdain for learning (as described in Norman Dixon's amusing text on the psychology of military incompetence) or disdain for academia (as outlined by Ralph Peters in his recent essay in American Interest). The net result - when someone writes a clearly inadequate piece - there are not many who can actually critique it, the publisher's desire to make money kicks in, and out comes another weak or useless text (like the circumstance Steve described).

By way of example - compare the field of security studies to medicine. To publish on a medical subject the writer must have some credibility (technical knowledge, registration / certification). Furthermore, he or she is publishing in a field where the profession tightly holds onto and evalutes professional applied knowledge against a known body of fact. If someone could get 'rubbish' into the Lancet for example, it would quite quickly be exposed. No such system operates effectively in our field.

It is my opinion that we will keep getting 'comic strip' sophistication in Military and Security studies publications as long as those with expertise do not engage, and the 'Walter Mitty' types keep getting 'free hits' at using the resultant professional vacuum to build fame, influence and fortune.

[selil]

I think Mark, Steve and I would likely agree more on the details then disagree on the interpretation.

I think Mark names the issue with military writing with his example of the Lancet.

[John T. Fishel]

Mark, Steve, and Selil--

As Steve knows, I spent some time at his Institute - I then followed him to Leavenworth. I also spent 15 years as a tenured faculty member at a civilian university, and now am teaching again at the U of Oklahoma.

In terms of research, I never was subject to any restrictions while working for DOD. The "peer" review process at SSI, CHDS, and Leavenworth, although sometimes informal was quite real. In all cases, I was given the opportunity to seek out primary sources on the ground. Moreover, there were fewer "politics" involved in getting research funding than in the civilian academia that I expereinced.

Here at Oklahoma, I am finding an environment that is similar in its collegiality to that which I found at SSI. Bottom line is that all of this tends to revolve around the individuals who have to make the various systems of research credibility work.

Cheers

JohnT

[marct]

Interesting comments Mark, Steve and Selil. I'd like to pick up on a comment John made about research credibility systems.

One of the more memorable discussions I had right after my PhD defense was over the concept of "peer review" and the problems of trying to conduct, and publish, research that went across disciplinary boundaries (my dissertation went from neuro-biology, through Psychology, Anthropology and macro-Sociology and most of it couldn't be "tested" by ethical guidelines). How then could you find "peers" to review it? It wasn't a problem for my committee (2 @ Psychologists, Anthropologists and Sociologists) but, when I tried to get some of it published, I ran head on into the "not pure" syndrome" (i.e. it didn't meet disciplinary orthodoxy) and had to publish it in a fourth discipline where it was all "alien".

So, what credibility systems are we actually seeing in academia? Within established disciplines we have "peer review" which seems to operate fairly well by enforcing orthodoxy, however that may be defined in the discipline. In some disciplines, and I think that Selil's area fits here along with engineering, "orthodoxy" is defined by whether or not it works "in the world". In a few cases, strangely enough Management is one of them, you can breach orthodoxy and still get published if you are an "accepted shaman" (it's about the only way to describe the phenomenon). So, three different credibility systems:

1. Orthodoxy (aka "peer review");
2. "Does it work?"; and
3. "Accepted shaman"

What's interesting about these is that they roughly parallel Webers' forms of authority: traditional, rational / logical and charismatic.

Marc

[SteveMetz]

Interesting comments Mark, Steve and Selil. I'd like to pick up on a comment John made about research credibility systems.

One of the more memorable discussions I had right after my PhD defense was over the concept of "peer review" and the problems of trying to conduct, and publish, research that went across disciplinary boundaries (my dissertation went from neuro-biology, through Psychology, Anthropology and macro-Sociology and most of it couldn't be "tested" by ethical guidelines). How then could you find "peers" to review it? It wasn't a problem for my committee (2 @ Psychologists, Anthropologists and Sociologists) but, when I tried to get some of it published, I ran head on into the "not pure" syndrome" (i.e. it didn't meet disciplinary orthodoxy) and had to publish it in a fourth discipline where it was all "alien".

So, what credibility systems are we actually seeing in academia? Within established disciplines we have "peer review" which seems to operate fairly well by enforcing orthodoxy, however that may be defined in the discipline. In some disciplines, and I think that Selil's area fits here along with engineering, "orthodoxy" is defined by whether or not it works "in the world". In a few cases, strangely enough Management is one of them, you can breach orthodoxy and still get published if you are an "accepted shaman" (it's about the only way to describe the phenomenon). So, three different credibility systems:

1. Orthodoxy (aka "peer review");
2. "Does it work?"; and
3. "Accepted shaman"

What's interesting about these is that they roughly parallel Webers' forms of authority: traditional, rational / logical and charismatic.

Marc

I'll give you my take on it (which tracks closely with yours). I think the process of peer review works fine in hard sciences where results are replicable and there is a minimum influence for ideology. In the social sciences and humanities, I think the process of peer review leads to groupthink as much as to the "truth."

In the political science journals, this has lead to conformity and a constriction of not only the topics considered, but also the methods used. And it reinforces the post-Vietnam bias against research and analysis that is policy relevant. Although I don't think you'd find it articulated this way, I believe social scientists feel that if they focus on policy irrelevant pure theory, there is no risk of their work being misused by political leaders they personally disagree with.


In security studies, I constrast this situation with the 1950s and 1960s where scholarship informed and shaped policy.

[marct]

Hi Steve,

I'll give you my take on it (which tracks closely with yours). I think the process of peer review works fine in hard sciences where results are replicable and there is a minimum influence for ideology. In the social sciences and humanities, I think the process of peer review leads to groupthink as much as to the "truth."

Hmmm, I think you are right, at least at he aggregate level (which is, after all, what we are talking about). I think peer review works best for "normal science" (in Kuhn's sense), but fails badly when a paradigm is either challenged or is breaking down. What may be operational here is the difference between review criteria: normal science as "orthodoxy" (traditional authority) or normal science as "pragmatism" (rational-legal authority).

Although I don't think you'd find it articulated this way, I believe social scientists feel that if they focus on policy irrelevant pure theory, there is no risk of their work being misused by political leaders they personally disagree with.

I think you actually can find examples of this being openly stated, at least in Anthropology.

In security studies, I constrast this situation with the 1950s and 1960s where scholarship informed and shaped policy.

I think there is a fine line to be drawn between informing and shaping policy and being conducted at the behest of policy interests and, as a result, being tainted by the political ideology underlying the stance of that policy. This is the exact area where I feel most professional associations have let their members down in by attempting to internally legislate individual ethical decisions (way too long to get into here). I ran into this situation directly when I was doing some contract research for a Canadian Government department and was told exactly what results the minister wanted to see. As it turned out, the minister was scientifically correct, but only chose to publish part of the research (the rest contravened his political agenda).

I have a suspicion that part of the group think (psuedo-)ethics of academics comes from a distaste for spending the time, and effort, to really build a set of personal ethics (there are, I should note, many individual exceptions to this - I'm just identifying what I see as an aggregate trend that is being taught to graduate students). This becomes a lot easier to sustain if you remain inside the ivory tower and if your research is "real-world" irrelevant.

Marc

[SteveMetz]

Hi Steve,



Hmmm, I think you are right, at least at he aggregate level (which is, after all, what we are talking about). I think peer review works best for "normal science" (in Kuhn's sense), but fails badly when a paradigm is either challenged or is breaking down. What may be operational here is the difference between review criteria: normal science as "orthodoxy" (traditional authority) or normal science as "pragmatism" (rational-legal authority).



I think you actually can find examples of this being openly stated, at least in Anthropology.



I think there is a fine line to be drawn between informing and shaping policy and being conducted at the behest of policy interests and, as a result, being tainted by the political ideology underlying the stance of that policy. This is the exact area where I feel most professional associations have let their members down in by attempting to internally legislate individual ethical decisions (way too long to get into here). I ran into this situation directly when I was doing some contract research for a Canadian Government department and was told exactly what results the minister wanted to see. As it turned out, the minister was scientifically correct, but only chose to publish part of the research (the rest contravened his political agenda).

I have a suspicion that part of the group think (psuedo-)ethics of academics comes from a distaste for spending the time, and effort, to really build a set of personal ethics (there are, I should note, many individual exceptions to this - I'm just identifying what I see as an aggregate trend that is being taught to graduate students). This becomes a lot easier to sustain if you remain inside the ivory tower and if your research is "real-world" irrelevant.

Marc

The U.S. government contracts for a lot of academic research but I think very little of it is actually used to bolster a particular policy. My organization, for instance, has contracted monographs that are quite critical of official policy. We wouldn't do a Noam Chomsky/Chalmbers Johnson type of poorly informed ideological screed, but are happy to publish well informed and argued criticism. I've seen the same elsewhere in the Department of Defense and in the intelligence community.

I made a comment on the anthropology board linked at the beginning of this thread where I tried to draw a distinction between academics being counterinsurgents and academics educating practicing counterinsurgents. The reply I got suggested that person, at least, didn't get it. What I was sensing was the old, stale Vietnam-era attitude that the U.S. is an agent of evil and anything it touches is, by definition, tainted. I got the impression that the poster didn't really know much about real world insurgents given this moral parity that she apparently took as an article of faith.

This reminded me of times I tried to engage with people who were protesting the presence of recruiters on college campuses to hire entry level intelligence analysts. I asked several of them if they thought the world would be a better place if the United States did not have intelligence analysts and thereby operated with even more ignorance than we currently do. I got the impression that the minds of the protesters weren't able to grapple with that level of complexity.

[marct]

Hi Steve,

I can certainly understand those reactions; I've seen enough of them myself - and been on the receiving end of proto-Dominican style academic inquisitors. Hmm, maybe I'll start calling them "The Hounds of Dog" (since they are atheists) .

Honestly, I don't think "complexity" is the right word for what we are seeing. I've spent a lot of time developing a theoretical model of subjective "perception" and one of the key things in it that seems to be backed up by most data is that very few people take the time to develop enough "self awareness" to spot when they are applying a socially constructed perception / interpretation (it's also a contra-survival trait in Darwinian terms).

Ideally, this is what is meant by "critical thinking" but, from my own observations, this term has come to mean either making finer and finer distinctions within an accepted paradigm or just saying "it sucks" if one is in one of the institutionalized "radical" paradigms. It's like watching a bad soap opera in the first case and bad stand-up comedy in the second <sigh>.

Marc

[SteveMetz]

Hi Steve,

I can certainly understand those reactions; I've seen enough of them myself - and been on the receiving end of proto-Dominican style academic inquisitors. Hmm, maybe I'll start calling them "The Hounds of Dog" (since they are atheists) .

Honestly, I don't think "complexity" is the right word for what we are seeing. I've spent a lot of time developing a theoretical model of subjective "perception" and one of the key things in it that seems to be backed up by most data is that very few people take the time to develop enough "self awareness" to spot when they are applying a socially constructed perception / interpretation (it's also a contra-survival trait in Darwinian terms).

Ideally, this is what is meant by "critical thinking" but, from my own observations, this term has come to mean either making finer and finer distinctions within an accepted paradigm or just saying "it sucks" if one is in one of the institutionalized "radical" paradigms. It's like watching a bad soap opera in the first case and bad stand-up comedy in the second <sigh>.

Marc

What I was suggesting was that the protesters, like the anthropologists in the linked board, seemed to assume that if the U.S. government was ignorant it would not act, and this would be a good thing. I tried to tell them that I found that logic pretty weak on two counts: 1) ignorance was not going to stop the United States from acting like a great power, it would just make the United States act more ignorantly; and 2) the idea that the world would be a better place if the United States simply disengaged is, in my opinion, ideological fantasy--more of the lingering Vietnam hangover. I find that the vast majority of people making this argument have never actually been in a conflict zone. The world looks different when viewed from Berkeley.

[marct]

But Steve, you are missing their logic

What I was suggesting was that the protesters, like the anthropologists in the linked board, seemed to assume that if the U.S. government was ignorant it would not act, and this would be a good thing.

Of course they wouldn't, since the font of all knowledge is inside the theologically inspired academy! If they can't access that sacred knowledge, then they will just be reduced to not acting!!!!!

I tried to tell them that I found that logic pretty weak on two counts: 1) ignorance was not going to stop the United States from acting like a great power, it would just make the United States act more ignorantly;

Again, according to the paradigm, the US [Gov't] is inherently ignorant and will automatically use all sacred academic knowledge to further the ends of nefarious politicians. The only way form an academic to maintain ritual purity is to avoid that source of pollution, to whit the US Gov't. QED.

and 2) the idea that the world would be a better place if the United States simply disengaged is, in my opinion, ideological fantasy--more of the lingering Vietnam hangover.

Na, it's not a fantasy - just a safe teleological position for a group of "thinkers" who act like a religious cult. Look at the "effects" on academia of the end of communism and then read Hoffer's The True Believer.

I find that the vast majority of people making this argument have never actually been in a conflict zone. The world looks different when viewed from Berkeley.

Of course not! That would imply tacit support for the US Gov't and would be a clear sign of incipient heresy !

Marc

ps. While my tounge was planted firmly in my cheek for this reply, most of it is disturbingly predictive - make of that what you will!

[SteveMetz]

But Steve, you are missing their logic



Of course they wouldn't, since the font of all knowledge is inside the theologically inspired academy! If they can't access that sacred knowledge, then they will just be reduced to not acting!!!!!



Again, according to the paradigm, the US [Gov't] is inherently ignorant and will automatically use all sacred academic knowledge to further the ends of nefarious politicians. The only way form an academic to maintain ritual purity is to avoid that source of pollution, to whit the US Gov't. QED.



Na, it's not a fantasy - just a safe teleological position for a group of "thinkers" who act like a religious cult. Look at the "effects" on academia of the end of communism and then read Hoffer's The True Believer.



Of course not! That would imply tacit support for the US Gov't and would be a clear sign of incipient heresy !

Marc

ps. While my tounge was planted firmly in my cheek for this reply, most of it is disturbingly predictive - make of that what you will!

Well, we all know that like substance abuse, someone who has left a a cult is never entirely free. Maybe that applies to me and academia.

[SteveMetz]

I'm reading a draft essay on asymmetric conflict by Harvard's Ivan Arreguin-Toft and came across this sentence which seems germane to this thread: "...a great deal of our collective energies are absorbed by questions of who among us should be more hired, published, and promoted based, to paraphrase the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., not on the content of our research, but on the color of our research methods." I likes that!

[marct]

Some very interesting articles here.

CONTENTS
Peter Jan Margry and Cristina Sánchez-Carretero 1
Memorializing traumatic death
Sylvia Grider 3
Public grief and the politics of memorial: Contesting the memory of ‘the shooters’ at Columbine High School
David H. Price 8
Buying a piece of anthropology, Part 1: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological research for the CIA
Roberto J. González 14
Towards mercenary anthropology? The new US Army counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24 and the military-anthropology complex
COMMENT
David Kilcullen 20
Ethics, politics and non-state warfare: A response to González
Montgomery McFate 21
Building bridges or burning heretics?: A response to González
Stephen Ellis, Jeremy Keenan 21
The Sahara and the ‘war on terror’: A response to Jeremy Keenan (AT 22[6])
Laura A. McNamara 22
Culture, critique and credibility: A response to Houtman (AT 23[2])
Gerhard Anders 23
Follow the trial: Some notes on the ethnography of international criminal justice

Marc