(via Savage Minds) Can a discussion about the use of music in torture shed new perspectives in our debates about the use of anthropological knowledge in torture, askes Kerim Friedman on Savage Minds. Jason Baird Jackson points in his comment to the Society for Ethnomusicology’s position statement on the use of music in torture:

The Society for Ethnomusicology condemns the use of torture in any form. An international scholarly society founded in 1955, the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and its members are devoted to the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts. The SEM is committed to the ethical uses of music to further human understanding and to uphold the highest standards of human rights.

The Society is equally committed to drawing critical attention to the abuse of such standards through the unethical uses of music to harm individuals and the societies in which they live. The U.S. government and its military and diplomatic agencies has used music as an instrument of abuse since 2001, particularly through the implementation of programs of torture in both covert and overt detention centers as part of the war on terror.

The Society for Ethnomusicology

* calls for full disclosure of U.S. government-sanctioned and funded programs that design the means of delivering music as torture;
* condemns the use of music as an instrument of torture; and
* demands that the United States government and its agencies cease using music as an instrument of physical and psychological torture.

There’s also a link to the paper by by Suzanne Cusick: “Music as Torture, Music as Weapon”, published in Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review 10 (2006) that starts with these lines:

This paper is a first attempt to understand the military and cultural logics on which the contemporary use of music as a weapon in torture and war is based. After briefly tracing the development of acoustic weapons in the late 20th century, and their deployment at the second battle of Falluja in November, 2004, I summarize what can be known about the theory and practice of using music to torture detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. I contemplate some aspects of late 20th-century musical culture in the civilian US that resonate with the US security community’s conception of music as a weapon, and survey the way musical torture is discussed in the virtual world known as the blogosphere. Finally, I sketch some questions for further research and analysis.

>> Savage Minds: Rage against the machine and music in torture

>> The Society for Ethnomusicology’s position statement on the use of music in torture

>> Suzanne G. Cusick: Music as torture / Music as weapon

SEE ALSO:

American Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of Iraq

Anthropology and CIA: “We need more awareness of the political nature and uses of our work”

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

In the newest issue of Anthropology Today (to be published in October), David Price continues discussing how CIA and similar agencies “covertly set our research agendas and selectively harvest the resulting research” and writes that “sometimes we may need to follow Delmos Jones’ Vietnam War-era example of withholding materials from publication when there is a risk of abuse by military and intelligence agencies:

Given the abuse of power we have already witnessed and the uncertain future we face in relation to the security state that perpetrated this, how far should we permit our professional involvement to go in this matter? We need more awareness of the political nature and uses of our work. As long as we publish in the public arena, anyone can use our findings for ends we may not approve. But we also analyse and advocate on the basis of data we collect, and have a degree of control over our own interpretations. Though secrecy may limit our knowledge of how our research is deployed by the security state, we must continue to expose and publicize known instances of abuse or neglect of our work.

Price’s text “Buying a piece of anthropology. The CIA and our tortured past” is the second part of a two-part article examining how research on stress under Human Ecology Fund sponsorship found its way into the CIA’s Kubark interrogation manual. Abuse of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the CIA’s network of secret ‘rendition’ prisons involves tweaking techniques described in Kubark:

As I have argued here, new information has become available that shows how anthropological knowledge has been applied to devising coercive interrogation techniques in the past. Also, we now know that Tony Lagouranis, who joined Abu Ghraib as an interrogator after the torture scandal broke, has described how Patai’s The Arab mind was abused by military personnel attempting to help interrogators dehumanize Arab enemies (Lagouranis and Mikaelian 2007). We must take this backdrop to the involvement of our discipline into account if we are not to become complicit.

(…)

Those who lead calls for social scientists to design improved interrogation methods (see ISB, Gross 2007) claim to do so in order to move away from torture towards a more humane interrogation, but they fail to acknowledge the irony that those they hail as pioneers of scientific interrogation were key CIA MK-Ultra-funded scientists who unethically commissioned and mined research for this purpose (Shane 2007). As a discipline we cannot afford to condone torture; were we to allow our work to be used for such ends we should become ‘specialists without spirit, sensualists without hearts’ (Weber 1904: 182).

Among other things, Kubark discussed the importance of interrogators learning to read the body language of interrogation subjects. The HEF funded the research by anthropologist Edward Hall on this issue, David Price writes. Several pages of Kubark describe how to read subject’s body language with tips such as:

It is also helpful to watch the subject’s mouth, which is as a rule much more revealing than his eyes. Gestures and postures also tell a story. If a subject normally gesticulates broadly at times and is at other times physically relaxed but at some point sits stiffly motionless, his posture is likely to be the physical image of his mental tension. The interrogator should make a mental note of the topic that caused such a reaction. (CIA 1963b: 55)

In 1977, after public revelations of the CIA’s role in directing HEF research projects, Edward Hall discussed his unwitting receipt of CIA funds through the HEF to support his writing of The hidden dimension (Hall 1966):

Hall conceded that his studies of body language would have been useful for the CIA’s goals, ‘because the whole thing is designed to begin to teach people to understand, to read other people’s behavior. What little I know about the [CIA], I wouldn’t want to have much to do with it’ (Greenfield 1977: 11).10 But Hall’s work, like that of others, entered Human Ecology’s knowledge base, which was selectively drawn upon for Kubark.

However, it does not take CIA funding for anthropologists to produce research consumed by military and intelligence agencies, Price stresses:

During the 1993 American military actions in Somalia I read a news article mentioning an ethnographic map issued by the CIA to Army Rangers. Because of my interest in ethnographic mapping, I wrote to the CIA’s cartographic section requesting a copy of this map. A CIA staff member responded to my query, informing me that no such map was available to the public. This CIA employee also politely acknowledged that she was familiar with a book I had published while a graduate student that mapped the geographical location of about 3000 cultural groups (Price 1989).

Given the CIA’s historic role in undermining democratic movements around the world, I was disheartened that they were using my work, but I should not have been surprised. Obviously nothing we publish is safe from being (ab)used by others for purposes we may not intend.

For more texts by David Price on anthropology and CIA, se his homepage

SEE ALSO:

Oppose participation in counter-insurgency! Network of Concerned Anthropologists launched

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

Laura McNamara: Cultural Dynamics in Interrogation: The FBI At Guantanamo (Savage Minds)

Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”

More and more anthropologists are recruited to service military operations

“Tribal Iraq Society” - Anthropologists engaged for US war in Iraq

San Jose: American Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of Iraq and AAA Press Release: Anthropologists weigh in on Iraq, torture at annual meeting

(via Savage Minds) As a response to the growing militarisation of anthropology, a group of anthropologists (incl. David Price, Gustaaf Houtman and Kanhong Lin) has lauched the Network of Concerned Anthropologists: They encourage the development of an ethical anthropology and to oppose anthropologists’ participation in counter-insurgency.

In an email they ask us to sign a petition and spread the word.

The Department of Defense and allied agencies are mobilizing anthropologists for interventions in the Middle East and beyond. It is likely that larger, more permanent initiatives are in the works.

Over the last several weeks, we have created an ad hoc group, the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, with the objective of promoting an ethical anthropology. Working together, we have drafted a pledge of non-participation in counter-insurgency, which we have organized as a petition (see attachment). We invite you to become a part of this effort by taking the following steps:

1. Download and print the attached pledge (in .pdf format). Ask your colleagues to sign the pledge, and promptly send it to us via regular mail. Our address is Network of Concerned Anthropologists, c/o Dept. of Anthropology, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MS 3G5, Fairfax, VA 22030 (USA). If it is more convenient, email a .pdf copy of collected signatures and send it to us at concerned.anthropologists (AT) gmail.com.

2. Forward this message to your colleagues, and encourage them to sign.

3. Join our network by emailing us at concerned.anthropologists (AT) gmail.com. Be sure to include your name, title, and affiliation. We will add you to our email list.

4. Visit our web site at http://concerned.anthropologists.googlepages.com/home for more information and updates.

SEE ALSO:

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”

More and more anthropologists are recruited to service military operations

“Tribal Iraq Society” - Anthropologists engaged for US war in Iraq

San Jose: American Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of Iraq and AAA Press Release: Anthropologists weigh in on Iraq, torture at annual meeting

“War on terror": CIA sponsers anthropologists to gather sensitive information / see also debate on this on Savage Minds

Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of Their Curious Relations

Bush, “war of terror” and the erosion of free academic speech: Challenges for anthropology

Military anthropologist starts blogging about his experiences

What happens when artists and anthropologists are asked to do something together rather than talk from the safety of their own practice? The result can be seen on the website Connecting Art & Anthropology: Transcripts of discussions, short reports, a video and even a sound notebook based on the workshop! Read also Anne Galloway’s comments on this website/workshop.

Last year we had a similar event in Oslo, see Cosmoculture: Preferably more art than books!. Thomas Hylland Eriksen said: “The most important thing the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said did was to establish a Jewish-Arabic youth orchestra. This was more important than writing 100 books.”

It all started when anthropologist Andreas Lloyd (University of Copenhagen) was browsing on the Internet looking for a new laptop computer and ended up installing the free Windows alternative Linux. Two years later, he finished his master thesis “A system that works for me” - an anthropological analysis of computer hackers’ shared use and development of the Ubuntu Linux system.

The thesis is a study of the Internet Gift Economy. Linux is developped by computer geeks saround the world, collaborating over the Internet, building a computer operating system in their spare time, which can be downloaded, installed, used and modified completely for free. It is among the biggest and most complex engineering projects ever conceived and built:

Based on more than 2 years of daily use of the Ubuntu Linux system and 6 months of online and in-person fieldwork among the developers working to develop and maintain it, this thesis examines the individual and collaborative day-to-day practices of these developers as they relate to the computer operating system that is the result of their labour.
(…)
A group of Spanish computer scientists measured the size of a Linux system similar to Ubuntu, and found that it contained around 230 million lines of source code. When they translated this into the effort spent on writing this code using a standard software industry cost estimate model, they found that it would correspond to almost 60.000 man-years of work (Amor-Iglesias et. al. 2005). By comparison, it took an estimated 3.500 man-years to build the Empire State Building in New York, and 10.000 man-years to build the Panama Canal. This immense effort makes modern operating systems such as Ubuntu among the biggest and most complex engineering projects ever conceived and built.

So the anthropologist was curious to learn more about how the hackers collaborate to build such an intricate system, and to learn why they were doing all of this work just to give it away for free.

How do you do fieldwork among hackers around the world? He explains:

I joined the Ubuntu on-line community on the same terms as the Ubuntu hackers, contributing to and using the same system, sharing their experiences with the system, and meeting them in-person on the same terms as they do at the conferences at which they gather, experiencing the same social and technical means and limitations through which they develop the system.
(…)
In order to do participant observation in this on-line space, I began contributing to the system by writing the system help and documentation, rather than the system itself due to my lack of technical understanding. In this way, I could take part in shaping Ubuntu alongside other community members while slowly developing a feel for the everyday exchanges and work in the community.

His thesis is by the way neither dedicated to any girl friend nor his parents:

In the true digital spirit of this work, I dedicate this thesis to Rosinante, the laptop on which I first experienced the Ubuntu system, and which was my faithful companion during my fieldwork and the writing of this thesis, only to bow out a week before tsafe for so long.

>> download the thesis

(Links updated 11.1.17)

SEE ALSO:

The Internet Gift Culture

Open source movement is like things anthropologists have studied for a long time

Open Source Fieldwork! Show how you work!

Gift economies and open source software: Anthropological reflections

Why you always get a present you don’t want - Social Sciences and Gift-Giving

Mobile phone company Vodafone gets inspired by traditional Kula exchange system

Open Source Anthropology : Are anthropologists serious about sharing knowledge?

2006 - The Year of Open Access Anthropology?

Another article about military anthropologists: The Christian Science Monitor writes about anthropologist “Tracy” who helps the US Army in their war against Afghanistan. Tracy “can give only her first name” to the journalist:

Evidence of how far the US Army’s counterinsurgency strategy has evolved can be found in the work of a uniformed anthropologist toting a gun in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Part of a Human Terrain Team (HHT) – the first ever deployed – she speaks to hundreds of Afghan men and women to learn how they think and what they need.
(…)
Finding ways to challenge that fear – and learn what makes Afghans choose to support the government or its enemies – is the job of the HTT. The key ingredient is a “senior cultural analyst,” in this case, Tracy, the anthropologist in uniform.

She has interviewed hundreds of Afghan women and men, sometimes for hours on end, hearing how most are “so tired of war.” In nine months, Tracy has gained deep knowledge, she says, aimed at helping “fill the vacuum that the Taliban and other nefarious actors want to fill.”

Tracy tells Afghans that she wants to “enhance the military’s understanding of the culture so we don’t make mistakes like in Iraq.” But the bar is high, and this village with the medical clinic shows signs of militant influence, such as being “coached.”

Still, Tracy says that she sees real progress, “one Afghan at a time.” And the US military’s views are evolving accordingly, away from firepower to a smarter counterinsurgency.

“It may be one less trigger that has to be pulled here,” Tracy says of the result. “It’s how we gain ground, not tangible ground, but cognitive ground. Small things can have a big impact.

>> read the whole story in the Christian Science Monitor

SEE ALSO:

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

“Tribal Iraq Society” - Anthropologists engaged for US war in Iraq

Military - social science roundtable: Anthropologists help mold counterinsurgency policy

Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”

More and more anthropologists are recruited to service military operations

Military anthropologist starts blogging about his experiences

San Jose: American Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of Iraq and AAA Press Release: Anthropologists weigh in on Iraq, torture at annual meeting

“War on terror": CIA sponsers anthropologists to gather sensitive information / see also debate on this on Savage Minds

(Links checked 8.9.2019) What holds humanity together? What are the hidden or unacknowledged features of mainstream society? These are the issues that 21st century anthropology should address, Thomas Hylland Eriksen writes in his paper The perilous identity politics of anthropology, Keynote lecture at the conference “21st century Anthropology” at the University of Oxford 28–29 June 2007.

“Obsessed with everything that divides humanity for a hundred years, anthropology could now be ready to return to the commonalities, that which holds humanity together", the Norwegian anthropologist suggests.

And rather than studying down, we have to begin to study sideways and up. “The crowded field of minority studies", he writes, “in no way matched by an equal interest in majority studies":

A possible solution might consist in making a real effort to study the basic institutions of society – any society – essentially through ethnographic methods, in the same way as we should – again – begin to address the central intellectual questions of today, in the domains of development, democracy, rights, human nature and the environmental crisis. This is being done already, but in too modest a way to make an impact proper. (…) Anthropological studies of everyday life in a modern society, municipal politics, diplomacies, government corporations, schools, hospitals and even military academies exist, but most of them focus too much on culture and too little on the features of the social organisation, in its formal as well as informal aspects.
(…)
Anthropology should confidently locate its focus of enquiry to the centre of society, using ethnographic methods not so much to create wonderment and surprise, but to reveal hidden or unacknowledged features of mainstream society. In this way we would be able to generate knowledge which is not only truthful, but also relevant and – dare I say it – useful. (…) Just as our predecessors took on the central institutions in their small-scale societies, we should now do the same thing in large-scale societies.

>> read the whole paper “The perilous identity politics of anthropology” (Link updated)

Nearly at the same time, Keith Harth published his paper Toward a new human universal. Rethinking anthropology for the twenty-first century, a lecture he is going to hold at the Center for 21st century studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on the September 7th.

Keith Hart argues in a similar way. In his opinion, “the task of building a global civil society for the twenty-first century, even a world state, is an urgent one and anthropological visions should play their part in that":

The solution to anthropology’s problems cannot be found in increased specialization, in the discovery of new areas of social life to colonize with the aid of old professional paradigms or in a return to literary scholarship disguised as a new dialogical form. It requires new patterns of social engagement extending beyond the universities to the widest reaches of world society.

This in turn requires us first, to acknowledge how people everywhere are pushing back the boundaries of the old society and second, to be open to universality, most versions of which have been driven underground by national capitalism and would be buried forever if the present corporate privatization of intellectual life is allowed to succeed.

(…)

So, given the precariousness of contemporary anthropology as an academic institution, the issue of its future needs to be couched in broader terms than those defined by the profession itself. (…) Rather I have sought inspiration in Kant’s philosophy and in the critique of unequal society that originates with Rousseau. ‘Anthropology’ would then mean whatever we need to know about humanity as a whole if we want to build a more equal world fit for everyone.

>> read the whole paper “Toward a new human universal. Rethinking anthropology for the twenty-first century” (link updated 19.7.12)

SEE ALSO:

More and more anthropologists, but they’re absent from public debates - “Engaging Anthropology” by Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1)

Interview: “Anthropology Is Badly Needed In Eastern Europe”

Working towards a global community of anthropologists

For an Anthropology of Cosmopolitanism

“Discuss politics!” - How anthropologists in Indonesia engage with the public

Get Out of the Library and Into the Streets - new book by David Graeber

“Anthropology needs to engage in an activist way”

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

Protests at Yale: When Walmart’s management principles run an anthropology department

Their language is nearly dead. Maybe a new website can revitalize Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga: The Kenai Peoples Language in Alaska? For more than two years, the two anthropologists Alan Boraas and Michael Christian have taken pictures, navigated through HTML and digitized old audio recordings of Native writer Peter Kalifornsky in order to present vocabulary, grammar, stories and place names in an interactive Web site that went live last month, the Peninsula Clarion reports.

“I hope people of all ages go to it and gain insights into both the language and the culture,” Boraas says. This project is the latest in the Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s endeavor to revitalize their Native language. Finding people who actively speak the Dena’ina language is one of the most difficult parts of revitalizing it. The credit for much of the Dena’ina revitalization goes to James Kari, who spent 30 years working on a dictionary.

>> read the whole story in the Peninsula Clarion

>> visit the website Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga: The Kenai Peoples Language

SEE ALSO:

How to save Tibetan folk songs? Put them online!

Knowledge Fades As Africa Languages Die

Modern technology revives traditional languages

Saving native languages

Inuit language thrives in Greenland

Book review: Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World