Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[M.L.]

Well, now here's an interesting question: why do you assume variables exist ? I would argue that patterns and forms exist in people's minds and exert a sense of "rightness" on individuals, but "variables"? That, I suspect, is highly debatable. Now, I could stop playing silly semantics, but I think that this is, really, an important semantic distinction. All too often, "variables" are proxy variables - my favorite one has always been church attendance as a proxy for religious belief: it fails, in Canada at least, because church attendance or, rather, the spike in the late 1980's - early '90's, was related to a general pattern expectation that it was good / safe for the children. It also fails in a whole slew of other areas as well....

You make a great point. This goes back to asking the right questions, the relationship of context to behavior, and the complex mental models inside thinking, feeling humans within a socioculutral system.

I'm reminded of the "Pepsi Challenge" in which (in classical scientific reductionist analytical style) subjects were given a blind taste test of Coke and Pepsi. The majority of subjects preferred the taste of Pepsi.

Of course, Coke continued to dominate the market. Execs at Pepsi puzzled over how they could be losing market share if their product tasted better. The answer, of course, is that in real life people don't drink soda without labels; in real life people drink from a bottle with Coke or Pepsi displayed prominently.

Subsequent studies discovered that when the subjects were given taste tests with product labels, i.e. they knew whether they were drinking Coke or Pepsi, they preferred Coke, not Pepsi. Furthermore (and this is the really fun part), researchers monitored the brain activity of these tests, and found that Coke actually produced increased activity in the pleasure centers of the brain when subjects could see the label, whereas Pepsi produced more when the labels were concealed.

People didn't just irrationally believe Coke tasted better. Seeing the label actually changed the activity level of the brain. To them, Coke really did taste better.

This has got to be incredibly frustrating to a scientist. However, if you accept that context, emotion, and subjective perceptions are all part of the sociocultural fabric, it may not allow you to predict behavior, but it will at least lead you to accept that there are vast unknowns out there, and that any attempt to understand or influence a sociocultural system should proceed from that basic premise.

[120mm]

People didn't just irrationally believe Coke tasted better. Seeing the label actually changed the activity level of the brain. To them, Coke really did taste better.

This has got to be incredibly frustrating to a scientist. However, if you accept that context, emotion, and subjective perceptions are all part of the sociocultural fabric, it may not allow you to predict behavior, but it will at least lead you to accept that there are vast unknowns out there, and that any attempt to understand or influence a sociocultural system should proceed from that basic premise.

This is brilliant, btw. However, I do not agree that these are "unknowns" or at least that they are "unknowable".

They are probably unknowable from a purely rational scientific POV, but they are certainly knowable or at least recognizable on a viscerally conscious level. The problem with traditional "science" is that it limits the range of intelligence one can apply to a problem.

Liking something better because you can see the label certainly makes sense on a gut level. Just like hamburgers taste better when eaten right side up. (at least to me...)

[M.L.]

This is brilliant, btw. However, I do not agree that these are "unknowns" or at least that they are "unknowable".

They are probably unknowable from a purely rational scientific POV, but they are certainly knowable or at least recognizable on a viscerally conscious level. The problem with traditional "science" is that it limits the range of intelligence one can apply to a problem.

Liking something better because you can see the label certainly makes sense on a gut level. Just like hamburgers taste better when eaten right side up. (at least to me...)

I agree, however, gut instincts seems to be a world apart from scientific method. Perhaps social science requires a melding of the two; a place for exploring what makes sense intuitively.

Perhaps "unknowns" is a poor choice of wording. "Complex variables" might be better; complex in that the value of the variable can change with changing contexts. In other words, the value of "most preferred soda" is not an absolute value, but changes as context changes.

[marct]

Hi ML.

BTW, I agree with 120mm - really nice example .

I agree, however, gut instincts seems to be a world apart from scientific method. Perhaps social science requires a melding of the two; a place for exploring what makes sense intuitively.

Umm, yeah, we used to call that pace "Anthropology" . Unfortunately, the discipline got hijacked in the 1980's, and the flip side of using intuition as a tool of scientific enquiry - "Know thyself" - got dumped from most curricula and the more important informal training.

Perhaps "unknowns" is a poor choice of wording. "Complex variables" might be better; complex in that the value of the variable can change with changing contexts. In other words, the value of "most preferred soda" is not an absolute value, but changes as context changes.

Well, names do have power (Coke? Pepsi?), and the art to naming something is to try and capture a perceived essence and have it associated with the name. "Complex variables" is better than "unknowns" in some ways, but it still implies some form of absolute value from the implication of causality and, as you noted, context changes "absolutes", which means that a) they aren't absolutes and b) the implied causal model is operating at the wrong level (i.e. it's trash at prediction).

I've been spending a fair bit of time over the past 15-20 years looking at how thinking in terms of patterns, rather than causal lines or networks, may prove to be a more fruitful approach: "life as improvisational jazz" rather than "the Billiard Ball universe" as it were. That doesn't mean that there aren't grammars or deep structures operating with a bounding effect on social action, it just means that linear logic can only be applied to a limited part of social action.

Cheers,

Marc

[Steve the Planner]

ML:

I'm somewhat confused about this hypothetical discussion on "soft sciences."

As an undergrad geographer/econ, I built urban parking rate studies as a proxy for demand variables, then spent time with CSX on route mapping, rights of way and box car movements.

In grad school (planning and policy), I was tracking coal supply/demand factors for budget/policy implications to major project investments, and identifying regional economic patterns and drivers.

So what was my career path? Running a parking management company through grad school. Afterwards, running a large business park development/construction company.

The majority of my fellow "soft" scientists followed the same path---site location, resource planning/analysis, transportation/shipping, weather forecasting, GIS, intel, consulting...

As a senior civilian adviser in Iraq, I worked on the same stuff I work on in civilian world, but more oriented to rebuilding the systems. We were in the field every other day---driving from Tikrit to Baghdad, or up to Bayji to inspect projects, looking at oil/fuel movements. After six months, I probably traveled to more different places across Iraq (civilian and military) than any military folks for the simple reason that their uniforms kept them out of many places/activities/conferences where a green suit was inappropriate.

I spent the next six months as an expert assigned from DoS to the UN, looking at all the disputed boundaries and working closely with the international expert teams, and a large network of civ/mil contacts, on borders, populations, trade patterns, pipelines, etc...

Personally, I believe the DoS PRT effort was really poorly structured and managed, but, within it, and especially through the EPRTs (linked to Battalions), there were some really bright, capable, committed and daily engaged civilians who carved out deep knowledge and contacts with locals---based on efforts to actually do things with them (drainage canals, seed, businesses, cultural programs).

There was never a time that I could learn anything useful about any civilian matter in any part of Iraq where a DoS EPRT person (or military assignees), did not know evereything relevant about it, including the challenges and pitfalls. Whether DoS or DoD these folks were experienced civilians (even if in a green suit for that tour) on the ground helping other experienced civilians in real life conditions.

What useful information could I have gained from an HTS academic passing through? Fact is, in 14 months, I never ran into one or heard of one contributing anything useful.

120 talks about tasting the burgers. There are so many folks like him who have actually tasted all these burgers with every kind of condiment applied, that it makes no sense to go looking for a theoretical analysis of the shape of the burger, the symbology of the burger, or the societal linkages of the burger. If I have a question about the burger, it can only be answered by a person with daily experience with burgers: How do I get one? What does it costs? How do I get more? Is the meat rancid?

I think there is a big tendency in this discussion toward a typology of social sciences that inaccurately implies that social science folks are all academic theoreticians. I suspect that most people with economics degrees are, in fact, gainfully employed in very practical day to day real life things that could never be defined as "soft."

The implementation failure for HTS, in my opinion, was to become lost in academia and "soft" theoretical analysis. They would have been better of at the HR/Recruiting stage to avoid academia completely and go after "hard" social scientists with deep reasoning skills in real world applications.

Re: Jed's comments. The answers can't be found by playing with the system. They are a combination of recruitment, deployment, and interaction with the real world and the real problems being faced.

[Dayuhan]

The idea that the tools of social science in general and anthropology specifically can provide military commanders with valuable insights on the "human terrain" is not unreasonable in itself. What I suspect is often overlooked is the reality that good field work takes a great deal of time. Even a very good anthropologist cannot walk into a new community, open some sort of intellectual spigot, and produce a stream of valuable insights. A good anthropologist wouldn't even try. Sending social scientists who have not specialized in an area into the field for a few weeks or months and expecting useful information to emerge is generally going to be futile, especially in a security environment that requires the people doing the study to have military escorts, restricts their time and movement, and makes the community slow to trust and reluctant to provide accurate information.

[120mm]

The idea that the tools of social science in general and anthropology specifically can provide military commanders with valuable insights on the "human terrain" is not unreasonable in itself. What I suspect is often overlooked is the reality that good field work takes a great deal of time. Even a very good anthropologist cannot walk into a new community, open some sort of intellectual spigot, and produce a stream of valuable insights. A good anthropologist wouldn't even try. Sending social scientists who have not specialized in an area into the field for a few weeks or months and expecting useful information to emerge is generally going to be futile, especially in a security environment that requires the people doing the study to have military escorts, restricts their time and movement, and makes the community slow to trust and reluctant to provide accurate information.

Actually, a fairly talented person with even a modicum of information can increase a commander's knowledge incredibly even in a short period of time.

The security environment you describe is largely a myth; someone with just a little bit of fieldcraft can navigate most of Afghanistan quite easily with very minimal security.

The ethnographic interview is a very flawed technique; people lie and they most often lie to themselves. Observation ethnography and looking at societal outputs actually make rapid ethnographic surveys very do-able and are usually more accurate, to boot.

The problem is, most Anthropologists are wonks, who work slowly, pedantically and often come from white-bread America with no experience in anything but academia.

Someone with a broad background, especially with one in agriculture, mechanics, history and linguistics and who is sensitive to nuance and has good perception can make rapid assessments and be correct.

I once sat on a hill in Helmand for four hours, and was joined by a US DoS guy who engaged me in conversation. I proceeded to tell him things he'd never heard before about "his" district that he'd never imagined before, based solely on that morning's observations of things like architecture and planting patterns. That guy had been there five years.

I just returned from a district that was reputed to have "no industry" by so-called "experts" who'd been there since 2002. I spent less than one day in the district and was able to identify a thriving brick-making industry, a combine factory and a large and apparently expanding machining business along the route we took through the district.

[-G-]

Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
Personally, I believe the DoS PRT effort was really poorly structured and managed, but, within it, and especially through the EPRTs (linked to Battalions), there were some really bright, capable, committed and daily engaged civilians who carved out deep knowledge and contacts with locals---based on efforts to actually do things with them (drainage canals, seed, businesses, cultural programs).

If you insert HTS (for Dos PRT) and HTT (for EPRT), is the statement not accurate as well?

Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
There was never a time that I could learn anything useful about any civilian matter in any part of Iraq where a DoS EPRT person (or military assignees), did not know evereything relevant about it, including the challenges and pitfalls. Whether DoS or DoD these folks were experienced civilians (even if in a green suit for that tour) on the ground helping other experienced civilians in real life conditions.

That’s a mighty bold statement.

Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
What useful information could I have gained from an HTS academic passing through? Fact is, in 14 months, I never ran into one or heard of one contributing anything useful.

Well, with all due respect, maybe some perspective on how much you actually didn't know about every possible civilian matter in Iraq. From my experience this was highly useful. YMMV

Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
If I have a question about the burger, it can only be answered by a person with daily experience with burgers: How do I get one? What does it costs? How do I get more? Is the meat rancid?

You don’t need a “hard” social scientist to answer these questions though. Any semi, non-retarded kid that’s old enough to count will do. In addition, “Soft” social scientists have been known to go out and eat a burger from time to time.

It's useful to know the "why" behind things like this. On which norms are you basing the rancidity of the meat, yours or theirs? Is it supposed to taste like this? Why would they eat meat that tastes like this? Is this a reflection of poor refrigeration, slow transport, sickly livestock, etc? Or do they actually prefer it this way? Why would they serve me a rancid burger? Are they just messing with me, or are they deliberately trying to make me sick (to make a point)? Which point? Which is the “wink” and which is the “blink”. How does this help achieve cultural intimacy? Those are obviously simplistic questions, but the more you know what something means, and how it works, the greater your ability to interpret/manipulate a person/situation towards a desired outcome. However, sometimes the meat just stinks.

Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
The implementation failure for HTS, in my opinion, was to become lost in academia and "soft" theoretical analysis. They would have been better of at the HR/Recruiting stage to avoid academia completely and go after "hard" social scientists with deep reasoning skills in real world applications.

Just because the anthropological community threw the largest (and loudest) hissy fit, doesn’t mean they were the only social scientists HTS recruited. Should HTS have avoided academia altogether? I certainly don’t think so. To imply that an anthropologist lacks “deep reasoning skills in real world applications” is absurd. I really think you may have the wrong idea about what anthropology is, and what a good anthropologist can do.

Are there a bunch of useless twerps in the field? Absolutely. But don’t mistake the current majority membership of the field for its capacity to contribute or its lack of relevance. History has proven otherwise. A good anthropologist has the potential to make great impact and/or wreak great havoc (IRB committee and AAA aside). Or they can analyze the heck out of a perfectly rancid burger.

G

[Tom Odom]

As a former FAO I am a believer in cultural intelligence and as an anthro minor, history major, I would have to class myself with the social science crowd.

I was and still am a believer in the concept of a dedicated human terrain capability. But I will say after a year as the POLAD in MND-B, the human terrain capablity never was applied in anything near to what it advertised.

There were bright, even brilliant spots on the human terrain teams. Some were antthropologists, most were not. What was lacking was a system to direct and capture relevant information based on the CCIR, not on a whimsy of a social scientist who felt that the Iraqis were not really happy having us there. Gee, who knew? The same fellow wanted to take the summer off because Baghdad was hot.

There were too many like him and not enough of the brilliant ones. None of them really got the concept of telling the commander what he needed to know versus telling him what they found to be "interesting" on any given day.

I again say that the concept is sound but its fielding was done so haphazardly that it left commanders and staffs puzzled on how to best integrate these teams. When those in the system don't have a system to begin with, integrating that system into military planning is systemically doomed to failure.

Best
Tom

[M.L.]

I think there is a big tendency in this discussion toward a typology of social sciences that inaccurately implies that social science folks are all academic theoreticians. I suspect that most people with economics degrees are, in fact, gainfully employed in very practical day to day real life things that could never be defined as "soft."

The implementation failure for HTS, in my opinion, was to become lost in academia and "soft" theoretical analysis. They would have been better of at the HR/Recruiting stage to avoid academia completely and go after "hard" social scientists with deep reasoning skills in real world applications.

Steve:

To be honest, I could care less what someone does for a living, academic or otherwise. The bottom line is that we need people who can think - whether we find them in academia or "real world" occupations is irrelevant.

I did my first graduate thesis on the relationship of experience to job performance. I found (stunningly), that cognitive ability, rather than experience, is the single best predictor of future performance. In simplistic terms - smart people are better at almost everything.

I understand where you are coming from, but the choice between academics and "real world" social scientists is a false dichotomy.

[Fuchs]

I did my first graduate thesis on the relationship of experience to job performance. I found (stunningly), that cognitive ability, rather than experience, is the single best predictor of future performance. In simplistic terms - smart people are better at almost everything.

This fits to my experiences as and with consultant(s).

We usually got tasks which we never had done before and proceeded to embarrass very experienced employees who had been in and failed on their job for years. They had failed to do what we succeeded to do in a matter of weeks.

Most of them were rather simple minds who weren't able to think unconventionally, creatively or even to raise their own level of expectation high enough to recognize obvious problems. Some recited what they were told, completely devoid of own thinking. Some were even too dumb to grasp what they were told.
Others were very experienced at one or two tasks - and failed every time when the application of their very narrow experience mislead them.

Once I even got into trouble because I wasn't able to hold back my astonishment when I was asked in response to an extremely stupid question. All I had done wrong was to ask why they hadn't thought about this consequence before their action (they had violated a rule and expected me to help them cover up their mess).

I'll never forget how I once solved a mystery for a corporation's medium-level management with a half-time effort over only three weeks. They had been clueless for years (they fell prey to several conflicting lies and half-truths). All I had to do was to use my university education, google, the phone, an intern, pen & paper and the brain.

[M.L.]

"Complex variables" is better than "unknowns" in some ways, but it still implies some form of absolute value from the implication of causality and, as you noted, context changes "absolutes", which means that a) they aren't absolutes and b) the implied causal model is operating at the wrong level (i.e. it's trash at prediction).

Marc,

I'd be the last person to claim that either absolute values or causal relationships exist in great abundance in social systems. Both are extremely rare, yet our craving for deterministic models (the perfect billiard table) leads us to imagine absolutes and causal relationships where none exist.

(Perhaps it is instructive to remember that Newtonian physics do not describe the universe as it really is, but we stick with Sir Isaac because: 1. He was pretty close. 2. Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory are too "spooky" for everyday life. Do we prefer comfortable lies to uncomfortable truths?)

My use of the term "complex" implies a variable which is dynamic, interactive, and is inextricably linked to its environment, as in a complex system.

Given such a system (and all social systems can be described as complex), the best thing we can shoot for is continuous iterative approximations of the system structure, function, process, and emergent properties.