Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[Mike Innes]

Hi Mike,

Sounds like a plan. I'll be interetsed in seeing your research, since I am very interested in the HTTs.

Marc

Groovy, we can share.

I'm just getting started with it, but essentially it'll be one thread of three woven through the book I'm working on (under contract with Hurst & Co Publishers), the other two "terrains" being material/physical and cognitive (broadly understood). Another way of looking at it is in terms of the "cultural turn", "geo" turn, etc., in the way researchers, investigators and military planners navigate the shoals of extremism and political violence.

I've been beating the "terrain complexity" mantra in a couple other threads, which is an outgrowth of research and writing I've been doing on sanctuaries. Basically, so the logic goes, one can't look at "sanctuary" without looking at the system/context/environment from which it sets itself apart (in turn based on the notion that sanctuary is as much process/condition as it is place/space, all of which are metaphors for exemption/exception/intermediacy).

[Rex Brynen]

I've been beating the "terrain complexity" mantra in a couple other threads, which is an outgrowth of research and writing I've been doing on sanctuaries. Basically, so the logic goes, one can't look at "sanctuary" without looking at the system/context/environment from which it sets itself apart (in turn based on the notion that sanctuary is as much process/condition as it is place/space, all of which are metaphors for exemption/exception/intermediacy).

Indeed. Moreover, the socio-political processes that provide "sanctuary" to insurgent groups are not only paramilitary enablers (that is, creating sheltered physical space within which military preparations can be made), but those processes themselves may be linked to insurgent interests that are primarily non-military in nature (for example, growing economic interests, or a political space within which insurgent decision-making can occur relatively free from external pressures and constraints).

Marie-Joelle Zahar (Université de Montreal) has done interesting (and largely unpublished) work on the Lebanese Forces and Serb militias which points to the growing role that institutional and economic interests can play in efforts to preserve militia cantons. You might also want to take a peek at my own work on the PLO's management of insurgent-sanctuary relations in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s.

[Mike Innes]

Marie-Joelle Zahar (Université de Montreal) has done interesting (and largely unpublished) work on the Lebanese Forces and Serb militias which points to the growing role that institutional and economic interests can play in efforts to preserve militia cantons. You might also want to take a peek at my own work on the PLO's management of insurgent-sanctuary relations in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hi Rex

Right on. Zahar's works sounds like a very close match to what Peter Andreas at the Watson Institute/Brown has been working on wrt to clandestine political economies (BiH), the criminalizing consequences of sanctions, embargo busting (Serbia), etc. He's done quite a bit of work on it, outgrowths of the greed and grievance school.

Wrt yours: Sanctuary and Survival! I know it well and have become intimate with it over the years. I've been trying to find a hardcopy that I can call my own, but no luck so far.

[marct]

FYI

Military spies invade anthropology conferences?

The U.S. military is not only interested in employing anthropologists. Now, they have started attending anthropology conferences. Anthropologist Caroline Osella from the University in London and one of the editors of Social Mobility In Kerala, is worried.

Much more here

See also

Final report launched: AAA no longer opposes collaboration with CIA and the military

ASA Globalog category n Counterinsurgency

Marc

[Mike Innes]

Activism is activism, no? If I'm a qualified anthropologist and professional academic committed to objective scholarship, then I shouldn't allow my services or knowledge to be directly deployed through me in a military environment... but I can engage in protest politics at will? My unconsidered, knee-jerk thought is that a lot of this is nothing more than left/right BS, not justifiable concern with ethical and professional standards.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Wait, isn't this big news?

Final report launched: AAA no longer opposes collaboration with CIA and the military

What happened? I suspect that the Anthropology Establishment realized that the military can be a source of employment. I mean, practically, there aren't a whole lot of savages left...the new frontier of savageness is the military! Okay, I'm being tounge and cheek here, but what was the turning point?

[marct]

Wait, isn't this big news?



What happened? I suspect that the Anthropology Establishment realized that the military can be a source of employment. I mean, practically, there aren't a whole lot of savages left...the new frontier of savageness is the military! Okay, I'm being tounge and cheek here, but what was the turning point?

Yes and no - in general, it isn't opposed, but I have yet to find a single specific where it is encouraged . BTW, the HTS is now verbotten.

In the context of a war that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles, the Executive Board sees the HTS project as a problematic application of anthropological expertise, most specifically on ethical grounds. We have grave concerns about the involvement of anthropological knowledge and skill in the HTS project. The Executive Board views the HTS project as an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise.

The Executive Board affirms that anthropology can and in fact is obliged to help improve U.S. government policies through the widest possible circulation of anthropological understanding in the public sphere, so as to contribute to a transparent and informed development and implementation of U.S. policy by robustly democratic processes of fact-finding, debate, dialogue, and deliberation. It is in this way, the Executive Board affirms, that anthropology can legitimately and effectively help guide U.S. policy to serve the humane causes of global peace and social justice.

More here...