Anthropology and the Recent Growth of Military and Intelligence Programs in the United States
David Price, Saint Martin’s University
Hovedinnhold
Abstract:
Drawing on archival records and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, David Price examines how anthropological research has historically been used by American military and intelligence agencies. Since the terror attacks of September 2001, American military and intelligence agencies have undertaken new efforts to use anthropologists and anthropological research for militarized ends. Price reviews these post-9/11 developments within an historical context contrasting past and present efforts by the Pentagon and CIA to use anthropological research. The recent efforts to use anthropology as an intelligence tool include the establishment of the military's Human Terrain Systems program, a series of programs installing Central Intelligence Agency representatives on American university campuses, a new series of secretive scholarship programs linking unidentified students with military and intelligence agencies, and a broad range of programs designed to normalize counterinsurgency activities as what are increasingly viewed as humanitarian aid projects. The political and ethical consequences of these developments and the responses by groups ranging from the American Anthropological Association and the Network of Concerned Anthropologists are discussed.
Bionote:
David Price is a Professor of anthropology at St. Martin's University in Lacey Washington. His research uses the Freedom of Information Act, archives and interviews to document historical interactions between anthropologists and intelligence agencies. He is the author of Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Persecution of Activist Anthropologists (Duke, 2004), and Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology during the Second World War (Duke, 2008). His latest book, Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State critically examines current trends in the militarization of anthropology and American universities.
Venue: The Department of Social Anthropology's seminar room, 8th floor, Fosswinckelsgt. 6.
All interested are welcome to all the seminars!
For the spring of 2014 the BSAS series is organized by Bjørn Enge Bertelsen. For further information, please contact Bjorn.Bertelsen@sosantr.uib.no .