Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[Mark O'Neill]

have turned a thread about Anthropologists into a beer thread (which is a change from the barbecuing Anthropologists thread subversion of few months ago...)

[marct]

have turned a thread about Anthropologists into a beer thread (which is a change from the barbecuing Anthropologists thread subversion of few months ago...)

Well, speaking as someone who has done a lot of fieldwork on beer, I don't think we can count it as a "subversion" - more of a "shift in field research emphasis" .

Cheers!

[wm]

Aw, you guys just like seeing somebody else twisting in the wind - and with less reason .

MarcT,

What makes you think it is with less reason?? That famous line from Shakespeare's Henry VI was originally "The first thing we do, let's kill all the Anthropologists." Some early anthro don visiting at Oxford from the Continent (I think his name was Hermann Ootiks) edited the manuscript.

[wm]

Well, speaking as someone who has done a lot of fieldwork on beer, I don't think we can count it as a "subversion" - more of a "shift in field research emphasis" .

Cheers!

MarcT,

The quoted post is additional support for my point about anthro guys "adjusting" a well-turned phrase in order to suit their purposes. QED with the tip of a well-earned stout.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Some people work at the tip of the spear, other work at the tip of the stout. I know where I'd like to be...

[Norfolk]

MarcT,

The quoted post is additional support for my point about anthro guys "adjusting" a well-turned phrase in order to suit their purposes. QED with the tip of a well-earned stout.

And here it is wm (See bottom of post):

Ah, that tastes good. Complements spit-roasted anthropologist nicely (with apologies to our own resident anthropologists who are refreshingly free of such narrowness of mind as many of their colleagues seem to suffer from). Turney-High performed some of the most comprehensive anthropological research on warfare decades ago. I read some of his articles years ago after first coming across references to him in Keegan's A History of Warfare. Keegan himself wrote that anthropologists consider Turney-High's works to be, quote, "inaccessible", unquote.

Keegan took this to mean that anthropologists in general spurrned Turney-High for ideological reasons; that may well be true, but I suspect that a basic unfamiliarity with, and lack of interest in, warfare in general and the military in particular render warfare in general "inaccessible" to anthropology as a discipline (with notable exceptions). The result is that much of what poses as scientific research and analysis of warfare and the military by anthropologists is much less than fact, and much more the equivalent of "popular" tripe peculiar to a particular class.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Have you tried Mackeson's Triple-X Stout? One of my faves..

Getting back to MarcT's response on what's "good". It's all relative, I suppose. Makes me think of Edward T. Hall. Here's a guy who brought Anthropology down to earth. Mainstream Anthropologists criticized him, if I recall correctly, about not being rigorous and for defining culture in terms of "high context" and "low context". It also didn't help that he worked with the USG Foreign Service Institute. Nowadays, he's essentially persona-non-grata in Anthropology, especially since his work has become the foundation of the intercultural communication field.

I read most of his work and it resonated with me in a very practical, "I can understand and use this" sort of way.

[marct]

And here it is wm (See bottom of post):

Now that is worthy of a field study !

Keegan took this to mean that anthropologists in general spurrned Turney-High for ideological reasons; that may well be true, but I suspect that a basic unfamiliarity with, and lack of interest in, warfare in general and the military in particular render warfare in general "inaccessible" to anthropology as a discipline (with notable exceptions).

That's probably a good observation; at least in general. There are some Anthropologists who do have a military background, Brian Selmeski is a good example, but not too many. Part of it, I suspect, has to do with an ability to "shift levels" for want of a better phrase. While a lot of Anthropologists are capable of going from an immediate "here and now" to an overarching (in terms of time and space) viewpoint shift, I have noticed that that ability is decreasing somewhat (purely anecdotal - not confirmed in any scientific way).

I think that "warfare" is somewhat inaccessible to most Anthropologists. Let's face it, most of us have never fraught, and that is a pretty serious limit considering that we tend to be experiential learners. The other way we "learn" is by immersing ourself "at a distance" - this is how Ruth Benedict dealt with Japan during WW II. But that means getting involved in reading a lot about the military, something that is getting harder and harder for people to do if they don't have any military background (hey, we may invent new words, but you guys take the cake on acronyms!!!!).

The final point that I see as a major barrier is the reaction to Project Camelot and some other things from the Vietnam era - that set up a moral vector inside the discipline that made "military"="bad/evil". I'm not trying to excuse that vector, just point out that a) it exists and b) it presented some pretty serious barriers to anyone who actually was interested in the military getting through grad school and/or getting hired.

The result is that much of what poses as scientific research and analysis of warfare and the military by anthropologists is much less than fact, and much more the equivalent of "popular" tripe peculiar to a particular class.

Some of it - I'd say that people like Robert Rubinstein have done some good work in the area as have a few others. Honestly, outside of a few limited areas, I don't think Anthropologists have really dealt well with warfare at all as an object of study. Even when you do find decent materials, note hat a lot of the time they deal with "primitive" peoples.

Then again, how do you think the military would react if we did start engaging in serious research? Honestly, a lot of it would be highly critical of current military policies and practices, to say nothing about what would be said about the political process! Ten again, I suspect that it would be highly unlikely that we would be given the type of field access and freedoms to publish that would lead to a really serious scientific examination.

[wm]

I read most of his work and it resonated with me in a very practical, "I can understand and use this" sort of way.

Ah, the death-knell for a hard-core academic theoretician, especially those of the "social scientific" persuasion. Hall was doomed if his writing was not sufficiently opaque as to be incomprehensible to an average reader.

[Norfolk]

Have you tried Mackeson's Triple-X Stout? One of my faves..

Getting back to MarcT's response on what's "good". It's all relative, I suppose. Makes me think of Edward T. Hall. Here's a guy who brought Anthropology down to earth. Mainstream Anthropologists criticized him, if I recall correctly, about not being rigorous and for defining culture in terms of "high context" and "low context". It also didn't help that he worked with the USG Foreign Service Institute. Nowadays, he's essentially persona-non-grata in Anthropology, especially since his work has become the foundation of the intercultural communication field.

I read most of his work and it resonated with me in a very practical, "I can understand and use this" sort of way.

Yes I have, and I found it a little, shall we say, "rich", for my taste. But the bottle it came in was pretty cool - I may have seen it on tap in Toronto once or twice, but my experience with the bottled version caused me to seek out something with a little less kick - personally my favourite stout is either Murphy's or St-Ambroise (depends upon my mood and availability of said brands).

The entire range of Real Ale, Bitters, Porter, and Stout constitute most worthy subject matter for serious academic and scientific investigation, research, and experimentation. The fact that so little formal study of the matter has hitherto occurred is a source of much consternation and curiousity in my quarter - do anthropology and sociology have disciplinary biases against such research, and if so, what conclusion that may be reached might they be afraid of...hmmm?

I suspect that a considerable proportion of many academic disciplines' apparent aversion to "real-world" practical use not only derives from a fixation upon ideological ends, but also from "professionalization". In order to demonstrate that the discipline is in fact a serious one (especially by comparison to the "hard" sciences and traditional arts), anthropology and other younger disciplines are still very much involved with not only developing but consolidating "technical" terms and language that serve to render it "inaccessible" to those outside of the discipline/profession. In short, rather than concentrating on real, useful, and applicable results (in addition to the necessary work of advancing theory) to establish and "justify" themselves in comparison to older disciplines, the younger disciplines remain inclined to contrive, IMO, a professional/technical "base" that has taken the older disciplines centuries to develop. Putting the cart before the horse so to speak.

I think the main resistance to serious and honest anthropological investigation research into warfare and the military would come from within the discipline itself; while I certainly do not deny that there are closed minds rearding the social sciences (amongst others) within the military, I think that athropologists who demonstrate an open mind would be well-received for the most part by the military (there are always a few ignoramuses to deal with). Frankly, I think many soldiers would be all too happy to find that someone, with an open mind, is actually interested in them and wants to talk to them about what they do.

Now, I'm not sure what resistance may be encountered at the highest echelons, where things can get a "little" politicized"; alternatively, that may actually be a foot in the door for social scientists, granting them an access that might not otherwise be so forthcoming.

As for anthropology as a discipline, B. and marc (speaking for said discipline), I fear that the chief obstacle to serious and worthwhile social science research is from within the social sciences themselves; to engage in such is to almost ensure professional ostracization from the rest of the dscipline at large. It's not merely a matter of ideology or "group think" or even the herd mentality; it's a matter of closed minds entering the social sciences (or having their minds closed by said sciences) and seeking, more or less, only what they want to find.

[marct]

The entire range of Real Ale, Bitters, Porter, and Stout constitute most worthy subject matter for serious academic and scientific investigation, research, and experimentation. The fact that so little formal study of the matter has hitherto occurred is a source of much consternation and curiousity in my quarter - do anthropology and sociology have disciplinary biases against such research, and if so, what conclusion that may be reached might they be afraid of...hmmm?

Nope, no biases against such research - just some trouble convincing potential funding sources of how darn useful such a study would be .

Getting back to MarcT's response on what's "good". It's all relative, I suppose. Makes me think of Edward T. Hall. Here's a guy who brought Anthropology down to earth....

I read most of his work and it resonated with me in a very practical, "I can understand and use this" sort of way.

Personally, I always liked his stuff and recommended it to my students.

I suspect that a considerable proportion of many academic disciplines' apparent aversion to "real-world" practical use not only derives from a fixation upon ideological ends, but also from "professionalization". In order to demonstrate that the discipline is in fact a serious one (especially by comparison to the "hard" sciences and traditional arts), anthropology and other younger disciplines are still very much involved with not only developing but consolidating "technical" terms and language that serve to render it "inaccessible" to those outside of the discipline/profession. In short, rather than concentrating on real, useful, and applicable results (in addition to the necessary work of advancing theory) to establish and "justify" themselves in comparison to older disciplines, the younger disciplines remain inclined to contrive, IMO, a professional/technical "base" that has taken the older disciplines centuries to develop. Putting the cart before the horse so to speak.

I'd have to say "yes and no" to that. Sure, a lot of it was professionalization, but there is also a major difference between the "natural" and "social" sciences - we aren't allowed to experiment on the whole. I suspect you guys will come up with all sorts of reasons why that is .

Anyway, if you can't experiment, then you have a problem - you have to work by almost pure observation/induction. Not necessarily a problem per se, but in order to get some decent results, you have to wait for situations covered by your hypotheses to appear.

I think the main resistance to serious and honest anthropological investigation research into warfare and the military would come from within the discipline itself; while I certainly do not deny that there are closed minds rearding the social sciences (amongst others) within the military, I think that athropologists who demonstrate an open mind would be well-received for the most part by the military (there are always a few ignoramuses to deal with). Frankly, I think many soldiers would be all too happy to find that someone, with an open mind, is actually interested in them and wants to talk to them about what they do.

That's certainly been my experience, and I would agree that the major barriers to such work come from within the discipline and within academia as a whole.

As for anthropology as a discipline, B. and marc (speaking for said discipline), I fear that the chief obstacle to serious and worthwhile social science research is from within the social sciences themselves; to engage in such is to almost ensure professional ostracization from the rest of the dscipline at large. It's not merely a matter of ideology or "group think" or even the herd mentality; it's a matter of closed minds entering the social sciences (or having their minds closed by said sciences) and seeking, more or less, only what they want to find.

Well, I would also have to add that there are major structural forces (i.e. funding, entry to grad school and jobs, etc) that are probably as important. Just to take one case example, take a look at the vilification of Montgomery McFate by many in the discipline.

[SWJED]

A True Culture War – Richard Shweder, 27 October New York Times Op-Ed.

Is the Pentagon truly going to deploy an army of cultural relativists to Muslim nations in an effort to make the world a safer place?

A few weeks ago this newspaper reported on an experimental Pentagon “human terrain” program to embed anthropologists in combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. It featured two military anthropologists: Tracy (last name withheld), a cultural translator viewed by American paratroopers as “a crucial new weapon” in counterinsurgency; and Montgomery McFate, who has taken her Yale doctorate into active duty in a media blitz to convince skeptical colleagues that the occupying forces should know more about the local cultural scene.

How have members of the anthropological profession reacted to the Pentagon’s new inclusion agenda? A group calling itself the Network of Concerned Anthropologists has called for a boycott and asked faculty members and students around the country to pledge not to contribute to counterinsurgency efforts. Their logic is clear: America is engaged in a brutal war of occupation; if you don’t support the mission then you shouldn’t support the troops. Understandably these concerned scholars don’t want to make it easier for the American military to conquer or pacify people who once trusted anthropologists. Nevertheless, I believe the pledge campaign is a way of shooting oneself in the foot...

[Gian P Gentile]

Anthropologists should not fool themselves. These Human Terrain Teams whether they want to acknowledge it or not, in a generalized and subtle way, do at some point contribute to the collective knowledge of a commander which allows him to target and kill the enemy in wars like Iraq.

I commanded an Armored Reconnaissance Squadron in West Baghdad in 2006. Although I did not have one of these HTTs assigned to me (and I certainly would have liked to) I did have a Civil Affairs Team that was led by a major who in his civilian life was an investment banker in New York City and had been in the area I operated for about 6 months prior. He knew the area well and understood the people and the culture in it; just like a HTT adviser would. I often used his knowledge to help me sort through who was the enemy and who was not and from that understanding that he contributed to I was able to target and sometimes kill the enemy. So to anthropologists like Ms McFate should stop sugarcoating what these teams do and end up being a part of; to deny this fact is to deny the reality of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am in favor of this program of HTTs and see great utility in it for combat commanders. I understand the debate too between these field anthropologists who are part of the HTTs and academia as this oped point outs. I think academia is wrong to chastise these people for being a part of the HTTs. But I also think that these anthropologists who make up the HTTs should call a spade a spade and accept the reality of the effects that these HTTs produce.

[tequila]

Agree 100% with LTCOL Gentile. If anthropologists weren't helping commanders figure out who to detain/kill, they wouldn't really be all that much use.

The alternative that anthropologists in opposition should understand is that that American troops without local knowledge will possibly detain/kill many who don't deserve it.

[John T. Fishel]

The article is interesting for several reasons. First, it represents a mainstream anthropologist who is takig a reasonable approach to the role of his discipline in war, unlike the hysteria that is often revealed in Savage Minds. (We've seen much of that debate in this forum with our own MarcT taking a leading role "on the side of the angels." ) Second, while I didn't hear McFate's interview on the Rehm show, she has called a "spade a spade" in print and makes no apology for her role (nor did the author of the op ed suggest she did). And, third, most immportantly, the anthoroplogists (some) are at last really debating their roles as citizens and giving some thought to it rather than simply spewing anti-military, government, capitalist cliches. We will all be better off for this because, Lord knows, we really do need the skills they bring to the fight, as LTC Gentile points out. Fortunately, not all anthropologists ever fell into the ideological trap. I remember teaching in the Army FAO Course in 1985 and 86 (Yes, Virginia, there once was a 6 month Army FAO course and 18/48 was a common specialty combination.) where one of my colleagues was an academic anthropologist (we were all hired from civilian academic institutions under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act).

[Beelzebubalicious]

I don't think LTCOL Gentile was writing that Anthropologists directly help commanders figure out who to kill/detain. He did use a personal example that involved a CA Major, which was probably misleading in that there's a world of difference between a civilian anthropologists and a Major in the US Army with at least 6 months in Iraq under his belt.

I think it's misleading to talk about the mission of the HTT in this way. There's no way a civilian anthropologist is going to be able to advise a Commander about who to kill or not to kill, even if they were willing to, which is another far stretch.

To say that an Anthropologist could contribute to a Commander's knowledge of the local culture/populace and that Commander could use that knowledge to better target the enemy, that's certainly plausible. If the Anthropologist is trying to understand the relative level of poverty (see Marcus Griffin's recent blog entry) so that the Army can better target and support the most vulnerable segments of the population, what happens, if he/she happens to see something suspicious in the course of his research? He would be obliged to report it, I imagine. And what if that piece of information leads to the successful targeting and killing of an insurgent?

[J Wolfsberger]

I think it's a mistake to focus on "kill/detain." The HTTs do lot of good just making troops aware that it's a bad idea to have male soldiers searching the women's quarters.

If "hearts and minds" is more than just a buzz phrase (and I think it is), then it has to be about obtaining active civilian commitment to the Iraqi government. That won't come about until we understand the Iraqi culture(s) and reflect that understanding across the board in our speech and behavior. That understanding won't happen without the support of the anthropologists.

[goesh]

- it boils down to the mindset that refuses to believe the Military is interested in peace and stability, that willfully chooses to see military personnel as knuckle dragging sociopaths, despite the abundance of evidence in total contradiction to such ignorant beliefs coming from such educated people....blah, blah, blah

[marct]

Hi Folks,

I think it's misleading to talk about the mission of the HTT in this way. There's no way a civilian anthropologist is going to be able to advise a Commander about who to kill or not to kill, even if they were willing to, which is another far stretch.

Definitely a stretch. Right now, it is pretty much unthinkable by, I would guess, most Anthropologists.

To say that an Anthropologist could contribute to a Commander's knowledge of the local culture/populace and that Commander could use that knowledge to better target the enemy, that's certainly plausible. If the Anthropologist is trying to understand the relative level of poverty (see Marcus Griffin's recent blog entry) so that the Army can better target and support the most vulnerable segments of the population, what happens, if he/she happens to see something suspicious in the course of his research? He would be obliged to report it, I imagine. And what if that piece of information leads to the successful targeting and killing of an insurgent?

That is a really nasty question. At the moment, at least to my understanding of it, Anthropologists have a "partial shield" on reporting "suspicions". It's closer to the clergy model than, say, that of a social worker. In most cases, we go out of our way to try and make sure that we don't see anything "suspicious" to avoid the legal problems.

In the case of the HTTs, the observations will have an effect that will, IMO, inevitably lead to deaths. The moral crux, at least at the operational level, is on whether these will be a reduced number of deaths from the number that would have taken place without the HTT. Note that this is totally different from a refusal to work for the HTTs because of the strategic moral crux, i.e. whether or not the war in Iraq is a "just war".

If "hearts and minds" is more than just a buzz phrase (and I think it is), then it has to be about obtaining active civilian commitment to the Iraqi government. That won't come about until we understand the Iraqi culture(s) and reflect that understanding across the board in our speech and behavior. That understanding won't happen without the support of the anthropologists.

Personally, I think there is an inherent problem with the Hearts and Minds approach as it is currently used - it isn't about "obtaining active civilian commitment to the Iraqi government" at the operational level, it is about obtaining allies and supporters for the US troops currently in Iraq. The problem stems from the observation that the Iraqi government is not able to exercise sovereignty within their own borders even to the point of excluding private companies from operating there. I doubt if this was thought out fully, but who are the Iraqis going to see as the benefactor: the Iraq government or the US? As a hint, look at how the Anbar sheiks referred to the US....

- it boils down to the mindset that refuses to believe the Military is interested in peace and stability, that willfully chooses to see military personnel as knuckle dragging sociopaths, despite the abundance of evidence in total contradiction to such ignorant beliefs coming from such educated people....blah, blah, blah

Sure some of it does - no question. Some of it, however, also comes down to looking at the strategic problems and thinking "why don't we get asked to try and solve some of them"? Look, Goesh, I support the HTTs even though I have some serious reservations about them (mainly the part in the original plan to turn over the databases to the host nations). I think they can make a major difference in how both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts play out. At the same time, I am really bothered about how the politicians are muddling around in areas they really know nothing about be that local cultures or military matters.

Marc

[Ken White]

Hi Folks,
. . .

... At the same time, I am really bothered about how the politicians are muddling around in areas they really know nothing about be that local cultures or military matters.
Marc

another nation???