Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[John T. Fishel]

Good column Brant. I was just responding because I am interested in HTS and looked at the book to see if I might want to buy a copy (hardcopy or Kindle is practically the same price on Amazon), Obviously, I don't want to spend the almost $6....

Gee Marc, it is great to see you on the Council again. Course, I have been absent somewhat myself so it is a case of the pot calling the kettle....

My suspicion is that some of the issues with HTS have to do with the fact that the mainstream anthro community wants no part of the military - most anybody's - and this, among other things, hampered recruiting for the program. But what do I know?

Cheers

JohnT

[ganulv]

My suspicion is that some of the issues with HTS have to do with the fact that the mainstream anthro community wants no part of the military - most anybody's - and this, among other things, hampered recruiting for the program. But what do I know?

Hating on HTS has long been coin of the realm for the bigger part of anthropologists out there, it is true. But my impression is that the program was not originally intended solely for anthropologists.

I don’t know much about the program so I have no idea how much it is/was intended to rely upon rapport. As I and others in the thread have said previously, there are things you should be able to get without even talking to people. But if rapport is an expectation, I have to question the why. I don’t know if Gezari means to suggest that with enough time, energy, and resources that the right kind of outsider is going to be able to achieve true trust and rapport with most of the folks living in an area of long term violent conflict. I myself am dubious.

[John T. Fishel]

McFate, who is at the very least the voice (and leader) of HTS is an anthropologist and has been in the center of the conflict within the discipline. Although I am a political scientist (my wife says that is an oxymoron - and she is one too), I was trained in part by anthropologists and make use of their methods in much of my field research.

My concern is that in a totally male dominated culture like that of many of the tribes of Afghanistan, female anthropologists are unlikely to be able to establish any kind of rapport with the male leaders in the villages. I worked in Latin America and it was easier for me to gain access and rapport with the male leaders because I am male than it was for my female counterparts although it was not impossible. Still, Latin America is a Western culture and was changing significantly in the 1960s in the same directions that the US was going but at a slower pace. Given that, is it any wonder that the HTS anthropologists who were killed (cited in the article by Gezari) were women?

As to whether rapport is necessary - if one wishes to really comprehend a culture - to see it through the eyes of its members - than rapport is an essential step. The need to comprehend a culture in this way for military operators is the ability to predict behavior.

Cheers

JohnT