Anthropologists in Iraq

[Stan]

Because they consider the original invasion to be unwarranted, they will take no part of a successful counterinsurgency. Rather, they will try to bully other anthropologists into the same position with a childish “petition” (as if other Doctors of Philosophy in anthropology are incapable of making their own minds up about what they consider to be ethical use of their knowledge).

Sounds like this thread goes straight back to Marc's "Why Doctor Johnny won't go to war".
I won't even pretend to understand the pathetic attack that Doctors McFate and Price concocted stressing the need for 'crytical 'self' evaluation' and freely using native populations as if we were all in Africa fighting the Pygmies for floor space in the jungle.

McFate wastes no time 'stressing' the need to read his book - before even going anywhere with some credible point (other than chewing on Marc for punctuation). That probably kept me from even giving his book a second thought.

Well, that's my take...confusion, when one considers the immense amount of intelligence these individuals have, yet are content to go to the grave with it despite soldiers and 'natives' dying all around them.

Now to Goesh.
Probably one of my favorites from the Vietnam Era, and seems appropriate is by the Animals: ‘We Gotta Get Out of this Place’

Way Off Topic, but short:
Talk to any vet (I have several times during the annual 'Ride to the Wall') and you'll soon discover how much they related to individual songs and the musicians that created them. One very crusty SGM told me how hard it was to discuss his experience, because he felt the language of our politicians was inadequate to describe the war.

Although I like your current choice, my second would have to be "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding.

Regards, Stan

[wm]

Even Captains Kirk and Picard felt compelled to disobey the Prime Directive once and while. Are the academic anthropologists pushing this petition sewn together with stronger moral thread than these two heroic icons?

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by wm

Even Captains Kirk and Picard felt compelled to disobey the Prime Directive once and while. Are the academic anthropologists pushing this petition sewn together with stronger moral thread than these to heroic icons?

Ahh, now we're really talking in my area of expertise

Rex Brynen, "Mirror, Mirror? The Politics of TV Science Fiction." In David Schultz, ed., It's Showtime! Media, Politics and Popular Culture (Baltimore: Peter Lang, 2000). (version here)

[marct]

Hi Stan,

Originally Posted by Stan

Sounds like this thread goes straight back to Marc's "Why Doctor Johnny won't go to war".

It is all part of the same issue.

Originally Posted by Stan

I won't even pretend to understand the pathetic attack that Doctors McFate and Price concocted stressing the need for 'crytical 'self' evaluation' and freely using native populations as if we were all in Africa fighting the Pygmies for floor space in the jungle.

Um, McFate? She is the one who has been vilified to most by the Price Gusterson crowd who wrote the "pledge". It think you have her confused with someone else, Stan .

Originally Posted by Stan

Well, that's my take...confusion, when one considers the immense amount of intelligence these individuals have, yet are content to go to the grave with it despite soldiers and 'natives' dying all around them.

And that is a moral argument that, IMO, has a chunk of weight.

It goes back to what Rex was talking about regarding professional codes of ethics (aka professional morality).

The second issue is the tensions that arise from one's professional responsibility as a social scientist, and one's potential function as a counter-insurgent. Academic social scientists are suppose to live by a series of research ethics that, for example, require disclosure research project to most interviewees, disclosure of data and findings, informed consent, and very stringent safeguards for interviewing involuntary subjects (such as prisoners) or those otherwise unable to give informed consent. HUMINT collection, IO, PSYOPS, etc all work rather differently, as does providing professional advice in these areas. There are some potentially troubling professional and ethical implications of moving back and forth between both worlds.

I agree, there are some troubling implications about shifting back and forth. But I think that one reason behind the existence of the professional moral codes that has not been examined is that they serve as a guarantor to the state which, ultimately, serves to legitimate and legitimize these professions. This, in turn, implies that these codes are no more that prophylactic mechanisms to avoid state and/or popular censure - a guarantee of moral "purity" as it were.

Marc

[Stan]

Hey Marc !

Originally Posted by marct

Hi Stan,

Um, McFate? She is the one who has been vilified to most by the Price Gusterson crowd who wrote the "pledge". It think you have her confused with someone else, Stan .

Doctor Montgomery McFate is a she ? Jeez, and I thought I had a hard time going to school with my first name

It's no wonder then why she has such a pesky demeanor !

Regards, Stan

[Rex Brynen]

To be frank, I think the witchcraft analogies here are rather overblown. The petition (which I certainly wouldn't sign were I an anthropologist) doesn't suggest any restriction or sanction upon anthropologists who do work with the military--it merely represents a statement by its signatories that they personally won't do so. It is hardly a threat to professional, academic freedom.

Teaching in a department where faculty opinions have run from very conservative to Marxist, I don't think (in general) we're in anyone sights, or hunkered in anyone's bunkers.

Finally, let me once more disengage the politics behind the petition from the very real issue of managing research ethics. While Marc is right that professional ethical standards (and research ethics boards) serve as a kind of ritualized inoculation against criticism, they are also vitally important. Especially for those of us doing research in conflict zones, failure to maintain ethical standards can hurt, even kill, people. Issues of source anonymity are important where research interviewees are at personal risk (I've had three of them assassinated after interviews, although I hasten to add there was no connection!). Credibility is essential, since researchers do their work without PSDs (I've been taken on car rides to unknown destinations by armed insurgents, had guns pointed at me by nervous conscripts, been arrested and shaken down by secret police, had my belongings searched by security services trolling for data on my research contacts more times than I can count, and have even been accused of being a spy once--and it sure helped that my reputation was clean and well documented). I've also had to warn colleagues that their research might put subjects at risk if they fail to maintain interviewee anonymity, or where detainees were involved and might be being abused by their jailers as a consequence of interviews.

The development of appropriate ethical guidelines for social scientists--or more especially for those social scientists moving between the academic and military worlds--would, I think, be a rather useful thing for all concerned.

[goesh]

Between theory and application lies a bridge of assumption in which one camp insists the other is soley out to employ violence as a means of attaining and maintaining power and control. This is the basis of the petition(s) and censure in the academic arena and the grounds for unwritten blacklists, snubbing and other juvenile conduct in which 'those to be gotten' are easily identified by political party affiliation and/or support of direct action against people trying to kill us and our allies. The camp of the latter has never claimed to be in sole possession of reason and at least respects the continum of history rife with conflict and aggression. I contend that a goodly number in the camp of the former are unable to accept the fact that military professionals do not want aggression and killing and that is a failure of reason.

It's a hard choice between Stan's nomination for theme song and that of Wm.

[Stan]

The Human Terrain System - An intriguing article from Ethnography with a hint of support.

I feel certain Marc will have a few comments, so let the games begin

One anthropologist that is a member of the HTS project is Marcus Griffin, on a year long leave from his job teaching anthropology at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. Marcus has been blogging about his experience working with the army. It’s rare that anthropologists get this kind of insider look at what it’s like to work directly with the military. Surprise! Despite what all your teachers have told you, working with the military is NOT evil….

Posted by Mark Dawson on September 16th, 2007

One Response to “Anthropologists and the Military’s Human Terrain System”

Mark, this is another interesting coincidence with the content of the Anthropology Newsletter for Sept (table of contents and some content links here). There is a particularly nuanced examination by Greg Starrett of whether AAA should publish announcements from intelligence and military agencies. He argues, in part, that we anthropologists are all grown-ups, and don’t need to be sheltered by our organization from the Big Bad Whatever. He further points out that depriving military and intelligence agencies of anthropological knowledge is not for the greater good. I tend to agree–think how much worse things would be if we didn’t have anthropologists involved! Laura Nader’s comment is that of the idealist–we should only publish the announcements, or get involved with those agencies as researchers, if we can have complete control over our data and the circumstances of our research (obviously, I am paraphrasing and interpreting here).
To which I say: when do we ever have complete control? Funding agencies, logistics, everyday life, all of these things serve to constrict the circumstances of our research. We do the best we can, given what we know at the time. If we were to wait for perfect circumstances, we’d never get anything done.

Goesh, I dunno which song would be better. WM's primate with a bone is pretty far fetched, but just might be the ticket. Perhaps we could work the monkey in somewhere with a 70's tune or two

Regards, Stan

[marct]

Hi Rex,

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

To be frank, I think the witchcraft analogies here are rather overblown. The petition (which I certainly wouldn't sign were I an anthropologist) doesn't suggest any restriction or sanction upon anthropologists who do work with the military--it merely represents a statement by its signatories that they personally won't do so. It is hardly a threat to professional, academic freedom.

Taken in and of itself, I would agree. I do still feel that there are fatal flaws in its wording - for example, it doesn't pledge that the signatories will not be involved as insurgents, just counter-insurgency!

I used the witchcraft analogies partly because I know the dynamics of them so well and they are, quite frankly, somewhat terrifying - at least in terms of social movement dynamics. The first main cycle of witch crazes (~1490's to 1530's) started against the express wishes of the Catholic Church as the result of two psychotics Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger publishing (illegally I might add!) the Malleus Maleficarum or "The Hammer of Witches". Within the space of 10 years, this had completely recreated the popular understanding of "witchcraft" and led to over 1000 deaths.

Now, I truly doubt that anything like that would happen at the immediate moment, but the dynamic is the crucial part - it completely restructured the narrative surrounding "witchcraft", moving it from a form of paganism and "delusion" to a form of Christian Heresy and, hence, the rightful prey of the Inquisition.

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

Teaching in a department where faculty opinions have run from very conservative to Marxist, I don't think (in general) we're in anyone sights, or hunkered in anyone's bunkers.

Honestly, my department (actually Institute, not department) is strongly on the left. Despite that, there is a fantastic sense of collegiality and absolutely no attacks on anyone at all about their research. I have had colleagues express their concerns to me about my research interests, but it has always been in the form of concern for myself and my career.

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

Finally, let me once more disengage the politics behind the petition from the very real issue of managing research ethics.

Absolutely! My objections are at the political and ideological (okay, and theoretical) levels.

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

While Marc is right that professional ethical standards (and research ethics boards) serve as a kind of ritualized inoculation against criticism, they are also vitally important. Especially for those of us doing research in conflict zones, failure to maintain ethical standards can hurt, even kill, people. Issues of source anonymity are important where research interviewees are at personal risk (I've had three of them assassinated after interviews, although I hasten to add there was no connection!). Credibility is essential, since researchers do their work without PSDs (I've been taken on car rides to unknown destinations by armed insurgents, had guns pointed at me by nervous conscripts, been arrested and shaken down by secret police, had my belongings searched by security services trolling for data on my research contacts more times than I can count, and have even been accused of being a spy once--and it sure helped that my reputation was clean and well documented). I've also had to warn colleagues that their research might put subjects at risk if they fail to maintain interviewee anonymity, or where detainees were involved and might be being abused by their jailers as a consequence of interviews.

Absolutely! While I haven't researched in war zones, I have conducted research in situations where any loss of anonymity can have serious personal consequences, including death. I have worked with informants who have had their houses burned down, who have been fired from their jobs and who have had their children taken away from them as a result of their religious beliefs. I have also worked with people who are on the tipping edge of suicide / homicide.

I am a firm believer in "sanitizing" fieldnotes so that any identifying traces are eliminated unless people specifically request and require that I use their names (it's happened, and caused my ethics oversight committees problems ). Like you, Rex, I've also talked with colleagues and students over the absolute importance of anonymity and, also, the potential psychological damage that can happen while engaged in fieldwork. It's also one of the reasons I was so opposed to the original HTT proposal - they were going to keep databases of informants with identifying features in them and turn all of that over to the Iraqi government - I can't thnk of anything mre likely to create a bloodbath!

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

The development of appropriate ethical guidelines for social scientists--or more especially for those social scientists moving between the academic and military worlds--would, I think, be a rather useful thing for all concerned.

Definitely, and I am all in favour of it. The AAA has struck a committee to do exactly that (I was interviewed by Laura McNamara for it) and I am very hopeful that they will come up with a good set of guidelines. BTW, Laura has been posting at Savage Minds on some of the issues being raised by Gusterson and Price. Her posts are well worth looking at and reading one, in particular, was what sparked my thinking to the analogy of the witch trials.

Rex, I am in full support of having a set of open and transparent research guidelines that are understood by all stakeholders and that have some teeth in them. What I am opposed to is the construction of a set of guidelines that are based on political ideology and are only enforceable by the development of a "thought police". I want to make it clear that I do NOT believe that this is the intention behind Hugh Gusterson and David Prices' stance - I think they are truly concerned over what might happen. I do, however, believe that they are jumping to unwarranted conclusions based on an ideological stance and that they are setting in motion forces that could lead to the marginalization of Anthropology. I also find the implications of their position to be ethically repugnant in that they are attempting to exert a moral force to withhold information and expertise that could save lives.

Marc

[goesh]

"Rex, I am in full support of having a set of open and transparent research guidelines that are understood by all stakeholders and that have some teeth in them....." (marct)

If anyone can achieve that, most likely it will be the folks of your discipline, given the willingness and ability of your profession to actually live with people they are trying to understand and learn from. I might proffer too that Marct's positive experience with the Institute he is affiliated with comes in part because of the Canadian influence and take on things. The Academics I previously mentioned, about 5-6 in number, show a markedly different perspective and experience in the American academic world. The witchcraft analogy remains valid IMO.

Stan: Purple Haze by Hendrix is getting alot of votes and there is a door prize, a box of 00 10 ga shells

[Stan]

Originally Posted by goesh

"Rex, I am in full support of having a set of open and transparent research guidelines that are understood by all stakeholders and that have some teeth in them....." (marct)

Good luck with that one.

Originally Posted by goesh

Stan: Purple Haze by Hendrix is getting alot of votes and there is a door prize, a box of 00 10 ga shells

Our PMs did not indicate conducting a poll or subsequent door prize.
Where in God's name are you gettin' this Bravo Sierra from

You should at the very least indicate what meaning Purple Haze really had during the Vietnam era

Back at ya !

BTW, I have a 12 ga. and don't need 10 ga rounds

[marct]

My vote is for "White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane, 1967

[Steve Blair]

Originally Posted by marct

My vote is for "White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane, 1967

I tend to prefer the Sanctuary remake of the same song, but that is a good choice. "Paint it Black" might also be worth consideration.

[Stan]

Originally Posted by marct

My vote is for "White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane, 1967

Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your head
Feed your head
Feed your head"

Will the monkey fit in

[goesh]

Stan, to mention Viet Nam is to raise some hackles and inhibit objectivity on the part of many social scientists. Well, any metion of armed conflict tends to do that, but, regarding the theme song for brave academics who oppose the game of dirty pool in the ivory tower, I've nominated myself Captain of the Search Committee and as such, I can change and make up rules as I go. Many military personnel can relate to that I'm sure as they seek the middle ground between shock n' awe and self-reliance in Iraq. Purple Haze we will define as that which emenated from the sh**ters as they were being burned, a picture of which, minus the purple haze, Tom has provided in another section of this forum. Some say purple haze is an apt description of my Posts.

[marct]

Originally Posted by Stan

Will the monkey fit in

Hey, backup singers are important !

[goesh]

By the nominations so far, it appears many inhaled when they experimented with marijuana.

[wm]

Originally Posted by marct

My vote is for "White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane, 1967

If you choose to go with JA, then I suggest "Lather" from the 1968 "Crown of Creation" album The following lyrics are particularly apropos I think.

"Lather was 30 years old today,
They took away all of his toys.
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him
About his old friends who'd stopped being boys."

[marct]

Originally Posted by wm

If you choose to go with JA, then I suggest "Lather" from the 1968 "Crown of Creation" album The following lyrics are particularly apropos I think.

That's certainly a valid comment on the lyrics WM. Then again, White Rabbit truly does capture the postmodernist existential angst of performing theoretical praxis in the current regressive, militaristic environment (I can't believe I typed that with a straight face ).

[sgmgrumpy]

Hey Marct,

Can you help decode this Phd language?

Now I think that the militarisation of everyday life is all about technology and security but it isn't Bentham's panopticon, Foucault's docile bodies or even the disciplinary power manifest in CCTV and consumer RFID that I'm talking about. It's the research, development and deployment of biopolitics and network technologies of terror, control and bare life that are actively re-shaping our very understandings of what it means to be together-in-the-world. It's how people with real power are constructing--in procedure, policy and law--what it means to be human, what it means to be social, and even what we should be able to expect from each other.

One of my favourite anthropology students used to love winding me up by threatening to go work for the military. (Sociology students seeking the same threaten to work for Stats Can.) And although he tried to persuade me along the lines of "it's better me than someone else, right?" I never bought it, even when he reminded me that I teach students to always keep an open mind. I'll also admit that these discussions of ours most often ended with me blurting out something intellectually rich like "But, but, but... It's just WRONG to help them!" and him sitting back with a smug smile. (So much for rational argument or ethics, I was clearly signing up for a simpler moral judgment.)

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