Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[-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