Anthropologists Win Plaudits From U.S. Military in Afghanistan, but Pans From Some Colleagues at Home
U.S. military officials tell The New York Times that anthropologists assigned to combat units in Afghanistan are helping to ease tensions with the local population and reduce the use of lethal force. But that success is likely to bring the long-simmering debate over the relationship between anthropologists and the U.S. government to a full boil....
Anthropologists who favor such cooperation cite the upside of the encounters. Montgomery McFate, a cultural anthropologist who works as senior adviser to the Human Terrain program, told the Times that “I’m frequently accused of militarizing anthropology. But we’re really anthropologizing the military.”
Other anthropologists vehemently disagree, citing the potential of such cooperation to blur the lines between fieldwork and intelligence-gathering. Voices in the discipline also point to the dire consequences of past cooperation between anthropologists and intelligence or military agencies, most notably during the Vietnam War. A petition urging anthropologists to not cooperate with the Pentagon is circulating.
Read entire article at Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE)
Anthropologists who favor such cooperation cite the upside of the encounters. Montgomery McFate, a cultural anthropologist who works as senior adviser to the Human Terrain program, told the Times that “I’m frequently accused of militarizing anthropology. But we’re really anthropologizing the military.”
Other anthropologists vehemently disagree, citing the potential of such cooperation to blur the lines between fieldwork and intelligence-gathering. Voices in the discipline also point to the dire consequences of past cooperation between anthropologists and intelligence or military agencies, most notably during the Vietnam War. A petition urging anthropologists to not cooperate with the Pentagon is circulating.