"On Suicide Bombing" is the title of a new book by anthropologist Talal Asad. In the introduction he writes:

For many non-Muslims in the United States, Western Europe, and Israel, the suicide bomber quickly became the icon of an Islamic “culture of death.” This led me to try to think in a sustained way about the contemporary mode of violence that is described by much of the Western media as “Islamic terrorism.” Is there, I asked myself, a religiously motivated terrorism? If so, how does it differ from other cruelties? What makes its motivation—as opposed to the simple intent to kill—religious? Where does it stand in relation to other forms of collective violence? How is the image of the suicide bomber, bringing death to himself and others, addressed by Christians and post-Christians?

He also examins the “clash of civilizations” thesis that purports to explain contemporary Islamic jihadism as the essence of contemporary terrorism, and he argue against the kind of history that assumes self-contained civilizations having fixed values. Asad also discusses state terrorism and violence exercised by the modern state:

I am simply impressed by the fact that modern states are able to destroy and disrupt life more easily and on a much grander scale than ever before and that terrorists cannot reach this capability. I am also struck by the ingenuity with which so many politicians, public intellectuals, and journalists provide moral justifications for killing and demeaning other human beings. What seems to matter is not the killing and dehumanization as such but how one kills and with what motive. People at all times have, of course, justified the killing of so-called enemies and others they deem not deserving to live. The only difference is that today liberals who engage in this justification think they are different because morally advanced.

>> read the whole introduction

By the way, Paradise Now is a great film about suicide bombers.

There are several articles by or about Talal Asad online, among others:

Interview with Talal Asad (Asia Source, 16.12.02)

Interview with Talal Asad: Modern power and the reconfiguration of religious traditions (Stanford University)

Talal Asad: A single history? Francis Fukuyama's defence of the universalism of western values and institutions is challenged by modern global political realities (Open Democracy, 5.5.06)

Talal Asad: Reflections on Laïcité & the Public Sphere (Keynote address at the "Beirut Conference on Public Spheres," October 22-24, 2004)

Talal Asad's hour-long Stanford Presidential Lecture

Anthropologist Cicilie Fagerlid is studying poetry slam in Paris and has become one of them she is studying as we see in the video of herself - the anthropologist as slammeuse. She seems to be in quite an intensive period of fieldwork and is wondering: Is "going native" part of the darker arts of fieldworkers’ repertoir?

She writes:

Both my fieldworks have been in environments close to my own interests. I could have been – and I surely would have loved to be – hanging around with policial activists in Brixton and mucisians in Tower Hamlets as well as slammeurs and slammeuses in Belleville, even without the excuse of doing fieldwork. Partly, I see this as a more honest anthropology as it is entirely based on the idea of an anthropology without radical difference, and more so, I don’t have to fake or hide anything – not what kind of information I’m looking for, neither my political views, my artistic interests and my way of life in any sense. On the other hand, as I’ve found myself asking the last week; what if I’m faking it all (so well that I believe it myself!), getting access through this perhaps naïve enthusiasm.

>> read the whole article in her blog

SEE ALSO:

Panic, joy and tears during fieldwork: Anthropology Matters 1/2007 about emotions

Fieldblogging from Nicaragua - reading anthropology is something totally different than DOING anthropology.

Paper by Erkan Saka: Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic Fieldwork

Doing Fieldwork Among Poets and Rebels in Paris - Interview with Cicilie Fagerlid

Sociologist Lars Laird Eriksen has written an interesting blog post about why academic texts often are so badly written. When academics try to write, it often becomes so full of jargon and it's a turture for the reader. So why is this so?

Here's his list:

1st reason for difficult language: Trying to sneak yourself to academic status.

2nd reason for difficult language: Not knowing exactly what you’re saying and hiding behind grand words.

3rd reason for difficult language: Being on a learning curve - still searching for the right words and images to convey your thoughts clearly. (The nice version of the 2nd reason…)

4th reason for difficult language: Common sense language is not specific enough.

5th reason for difficult language: Common sense language is too politicized.

6th reason for difficult language: Common sense language is what is being analysed.

Number 3 is the interesting one in his opinion:

It conveys to me that when an idea is better understood, it can be expressed more simply. This also explains why cutting-edge research often is difficult to read: No-one has thought these thoughts before, so we are still on the learning curve of making them easier to think and say.

Which reminds me: Sometimes a text is difficult to understand, even if it is written in plain language - it could be because it is saying something new and different, something requires the mind to change direction for a while and think differently.

His blog is bilingual (Norwegian / English). He also contributes to the blog Sosionautene (Norwegian only)

SEE ALSO:

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (Savage Minds): What is good anthropological writing?

How To Present A Paper - or Can Anthropologists Talk? A wishlist

The Secret of Good Ethnographies - Engaging Anthropology Part III

Why is anthropological writing so boring? New issue of Anthropology Matters

Reading my earlier post “The dangerous militarisation of anthropology” you might get the impression that this is something that only regards the U.S. But the same thing is happening in Britain. A few weeks ago the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth (ASA) passed a resolution that criticized a huge British research program that recruits anthropologists for “anti-terror” spying activities, and anthropologist Susan Wright (Danish University of Education) called for global coordination on this issue.

Here is ASAs resolution:

The ASA notes with concern the formulations of the recent ESRC/AHRC/FCO funding initiatives (Programmes) on ‘New Security Challenges’. While welcoming the withdrawal of the first proposed Programme, it considers that the revised initiative, particularly as set out in section 3.2. (that the research should inform UK Counter Terrorism policy overseas), is prejudicial to the position of all researchers working abroad, including those who have nothing to do with this Programme”.

This meeting thus proposes as follows:

* that all anthropologists in the UK, and members of the ASA in particular who might have applied for funding under this Programme, consider carefully the position in which they could place themselves, the people with whom they work in the field, and other colleagues. They should also note that research of this kind may well conflict with the ASA’s Code of Ethics,

* that the office-holders and Committee have the confidence of the ASA membership to discuss these issues with colleagues within this and other disciplines, both through networks and professional associations, and decide on what further actions are appropriate.

“This is a major issue that professional associations in the UK and the US need to take a hard line on”, writes Susan Wright in Anthropology Today February 2007:

It’s no use one country’s professional association taking a hard line and another not: it will make it impossibly difficult for politically marginalized people to decide who to work with and who not to if any country’s professional association condones academic enquiry being confused with spying, surveillance or counterinsurgency.

What’s this all about?

In July 2006, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) invited chosen academics to bid for funding under a £1.3-million research initiative entitled ‘Combating terrorism by countering radicalisation’. It is a research program that is based on the premise of a link between Islam, radicalization and terrorism. ‘Radicalization’ is a new buzzword in intelligence circles and was nowhere defined.

As Gustaaf Houtman explained in Anthropology Today 6/2006:

The ‘initiative’ was not openly advertised and MI5’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (which in 2003 brought together counter-terrorist expertise from 11 key government departments and agencies, including the police), was understood to have participated in its design. The programme was jointly sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under the direction of Professor Stuart Croft, the Director of the ESRC’s five-year New Security Challenges Programme (a programme that began in 2003, and sponsors 40 research projects aiming ‘to try to offer fresh insight into the security challenges faced in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 globalized world’).

Under the ‘Combating terrorism programme’ six regions – Europe, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa and the Gulf – and five specific countries – Jordan, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Turkey – were chosen for study.

Academics would be asked to ‘scope the growth in influence and membership of extremist Islamist groups in the past 20 years’, ‘indicate where intervention strategies might have a disproportionate influence’, ‘name the key figures (moderate and extreme) and key groups (including charities and proselytising religious groups) influencing the local population’ and ‘understand the use of theological legitimisation for violence’. Among the main topics mentioned were ‘radicalisation drivers and counter- strategies in each of the country studies’ and ‘future trends likely to increase/decrease radicalisation’.

But these plans were suspended soon after the Times Higher Educational Supplement got hold of the story and this spring, a revised version was launched.

Nevertheless, the focus doesn't seem to have changed a lot as we see in these lines in paragraph 3.2:

The FCO’s interest in this initiative stems from the recognition that independent, high-quality research on radicalisation issues can inform UK Counter Terrorism policy overseas. As part of the Prevent strand of that policy in particular, the FCO seeks to use research to increase its knowledge and understanding of the factors associated with radicalisation in those countries and regions identified as high priority. The Prevent strand is concerned with tackling the radicalisation of individuals, both in the UK and elsewhere, which sustains the international terrorist threat.

(...)

Proposals with a country or regional focus should address questions arising out of a critical engagement with the conventional wisdom and scholarship on topics of relevance to the initiative.

These include:
• Key political, social, cultural and demographic factors that impact upon Muslim populations in the area of study
• The social profile of those who may support or be attracted to violence, in terms of gender, age, class and ethnicity
• Diverse forms of avowedly Islamist mobilisation, both political and non-political, violent and non-violent
• The diversity of Islamic schools, organisations, political parties and social movements and the divisions between such bodies, movements and sects
• Patterns of migration, identity formation, and mobilisation among Muslim diasporic communities and their impact on ‘radicalisation’

The project is not an entirely British affair. According to Jeremy Keenan (Anthropology Today February 2007) it has been designed to meet the needs of its US ally, whose counter-terrorism initiatives have been running into an increasing number of difficulties in several places in the world. The FCO, he writes, had been asked by the Americans to help them in their "counterterrorist efforts" in the Sahara-Sahel. The FCO was now asking the ESRC and AHRC to get British academics involved. Keenan who has done reearch in this area for 30 years in this area has also been asked to advise them.

This ‘second front’, he writes, has played a key role in furthering US interests over the last five years. In particular, it has created the ideological conditions used to justify and legitimize the current militarization of Africa for the purposes of securing US strategic national resources – notably oil. The ‘front’ has also been used by the Pentagon’s controversial Office of Special Plans to ‘cherry-pick’ now largely disproved intelligence to support its invasion of Iraq. It has also helped to keep a more sceptical ‘old Europe’ supportive of the ‘global’ ‘war on terror’.

But as his research has shown, there are no terrorists there. Most, if not all, of the ‘terrorist’ incidents in this region, which justified the launch of the ‘second front’, Keenan writes, were fabricated by US and/or Algerian military intelligence services.

SEE ALSO:

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

"Tribal Iraq Society" - Anthropologists engaged for US war in Iraq

Fieldwork reveals: Bush administration is lying about the "war on terror" in the Sahara

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

USA: Censorship threatens fieldwork - A call for resistance

Two Books Explore the Sins of Anthropologists Past and Present

There are three forums at antropologi.info - in Norwegian (Nordic), German and English. Recently, a few new entries have appeared in the English forum - a sign of more activity there?

Studying anthropology in Europe... any advice?

Sexuality and kids

NAPA/AAA's Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC)2007

You may use the forum both for asking questions and publishing information on conferences, call for papers etc.

Due to spam attacks, you have to register first.

>> visit the forum

On 15 December 2006 the US Army released a new counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24. At least one anthropologist played a role in preparing the 282-page document: Montgomery McFate. Anthropological knowledge is even considered as more important than bombs: Military generals call for for "culturally informed occupation" and ‘culture-centric warfare’. But this development undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and will end up harming the entire discipline, Roberto J. González and David Price write in the June issue of Anthropology Today (not yet published).

The involvement of anthropologists in the preparation of the counterinsurgency manual is according to González the latest development in a trend that has become increasingly evident since 2001: the use of ‘cultural knowledge’ to wage the ‘war on terror’. FM 3-24 generally reads like a manual for indirect colonial rule – though ‘empire’ and ‘imperial’ are taboo words, never used in reference to US power, he writes and is partly inspired by T.E. Lawrence, who in 1917 published the piece ‘Twenty-seven articles’ for Arab Bulletin, the intelligence journal of Great Britain’s Cairo-based Arab Bureau.

Journals such as Military Review (published by the US Army’s Combined Arms Center) and the online Small Wars Journal have featured articles explicitly advocating a more ‘anthropological’ approach to war fighting, and some retired generals have even called for ‘culture-centric warfare’:

Testifying before the US House Armed Services Committee in 2004, Major General Robert Scales argued that ‘during the present “cultural” phase of the war… intimate knowledge of the enemy’s motivation, intent, will, tactical method and cultural environment has proven to be far more important for success than the deployment of smart bombs, unmanned aircraft and expansive bandwidth’ (Scales 2004: 2).

Interest in ‘anthropological’ expertise for battlefield application is increasingly framed in terms of ‘human terrain’, he writes:

For example, a recent article in Military Review explicitly makes the case for the creation of ‘human terrain systems’ (HTS) which are being specifically designed to address cultural awareness shortcomings at the operational and tactical levels by giving brigade commanders an organic capability to help understand and deal with ‘human terrain’ – the social, ethnographic, cultural, economic, and political elements among whom a force is operatin.

‘Human terrain’ studies date back seven years, when retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters published ‘The human terrain of urban operations’ (Peters 2000). Since then others including Kipp et al. (2006) and McConnell, Matson and Clemmer (2007) have cited the need for ‘anthropological’ participation in military operations.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has created a new project called Human Terrain System, and its director is currently recruiting social scientists to joint pilot teams in Iraq and Afghanistan as ‘cultural advisors’.

What are the consequences of anthropologists engaging in counterinsurgency work? It's obvious that it both undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and the life of their families and informants: It is plausible, Gonzales argues, that ‘once Thai peasants or Somali clansmen learn that some anthropologists are secretly working for the US government, they begin to suspect all other anthropologists. Fieldwork will be a lot more dangerous.

American anthropologists have been surprisingly reluctant to learn their lesson from the past, David Price reminds us in another article in Anthropology Today June 2007. Though largely unexamined, he writes, the extent of covert CIA funding of American-funded social science research during the 1950s and 1960s was extraordinary:

In the mid-1970s the US Senate discovered that a surprisingly large proportion of research grants issued during the escalation of the Vietnam War and other military Cold War incursions were either directly or indirectly funded by the CIA. Without having to account for their actions, these agencies were left free to set covert research agendas, to influence the direction in which scholars took their research, and to appropriate research for covert ends. (...)
Unwitting participation by reputable scholars channelled what appeared as innocuous academic research into covert unethical programmes. Through this practice the CIA helped build up the careers of some academics, influenced social science and behavioural research, and generally attempted to create informal networks they could tap for information to provide input into their covert goals. By their own admission, CIA money-laundering was at its most effective when funds flowed through seemingly innocent private foundations like the Human Ecology Fund.
(...)
Given that the ‘war on terror’ once again finds intelligence agencies seeking help from academia, we need to consider and evaluate these past interactions and be mindful that intelligence agencies have at times been silent consumers of our research.

He concludes:

If we do not want to go into history as collaborators with such coercive covert agencies, who may use our research to dominate and exploit the peoples we work with, then we must take decisive action now, identify and expose such programmes wherever we can, and advise our professional associations to recommend our colleagues not touch them.

It was with such concerns in mind that two resolutions were submitted to the AAA at its November 2006 annual meeting, condemning the occupation of Iraq and the use of torture, Gonzales reminds us:

Although academic resolutions are not likely to transform US government policies (much less the practices of contractors to the military) these do articulate a set of values and ethical concerns shared by many anthropologists. They could potentially extend and amplify dialogue among social scientists around issues of torture, collaboration with the military, and the potential abuse of social science in the ‘war on terror’. Anthropologists may well inspire others to confront directly – and resist – the militarization of their disciplines at this critical moment in the history of the social sciences.

UPDATE (4.7.07):

Just found the text Roberto J. Gonzalez: We Must Fight the Militarization of Anthropology, previously published in The Chronicle of Higher Education)

UPDATE (29.5.07)

Inspired by this post, Space and Culture gives us more details about the military and anthropology, among other things about "Ethnographic Intelligence".

The Small Wars Council has opened a thread in their forum about this issue and one user wrote "maybe someone should write a counterpiece called "The Dangerous Anthropologization of the Military".

SEE ALSO:

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

More and more anthropologists are recruited to service military operations

Savage Minds: The Fate of McFate - Anthropology’s Relationship with the Military Revisited

"Tribal Iraq Society" - Anthropologists engaged for US war in Iraq

Anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani: "Peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention"

Embedded anthropology? Anthropologist studies Canadian soldiers in the field

Fieldwork reveals: Bush administration is lying about the "war on terror" in the Sahara

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

USA: Censorship threatens fieldwork - A call for resistance

Two Books Explore the Sins of Anthropologists Past and Present

The connections between anthropologists, military counterinsurgency experts and intelligence agencies are multiplying and deepening. It is well known that anthropologists work for the military. But government agencies may be only the tip of the iceberg. Contractors to the military are probably employing many more anthropologists as the privatization of the military grows apace, Roberto J. González writes in Anthropology Today June 2007 (to be published in a couple of weeks).

I quote his "small sample of military contractors currently recruiting anthropologists to service military operations":

1. BAE Systems is advertising a ‘field anthropologist’ position for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan for what appears to be counterinsurgency support work. The job is ‘designed to dramatically improve the collection, interpretation, understanding, operational application, and sharing of local cultural knowledge… [it] facilitates the collection, analysis, archiving and application of cultural information relevant to the unit commander’s operational decision-making process.’

2. Hicks & Associates (a subsidiary of the multinational Science Applications International Corporation) is advertising a ‘research assistant’ position for a project that ‘investigates the evolution of subnational identities within and across states, and the implication of culture on attitudinal perspectives of other groups… [in] Tunisia and other North African nations… the position requires a background in anthropology… Arabic language skills are a plus.’

3. L-3 Communications is advertising a position for ‘cultural expert – Middle East’. Duties include ‘technical intelligence data gathering and analysis skills and abilities to manage, develop, implement, and administer intelligence analysis programs and policies for customer applications’. Candidate ‘MUST be fluent in Arabic, Pashtu, or Persian-Farsi… MUST have knowledge of prevalent Sunni and Shia tribes in the Middle East… US Citizens applying must hold PhD in History or Anthropology’.

4. Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) is advertising a ‘COIN operations specialist’ position in order to ‘provide Brigade Combat Team or Regiment, battalion and company-level leaders of Coalition units and brigade and battalion-level leaders of Transition Teams (MiTT/NPTT/BTT) and the Iraqi Security Forces (Iraqi Army and Iraqi National Police) with a fundamental understanding of COIN principles, lessons learned and TTPs required to execute full-spectrum operations in the Iraqi Theater of Operations… a Master’s Degree in Military Science, Psychology, Cultural Anthropology’ is preferred and military experience is a requirement.

5. Booz Allen Hamilton is advertising a position for a ‘war on terrorism analyst’ who will conduct ‘research into adversary and target country elements of power, including political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information (PMESII) systems to assist military planners... conduct evaluations of terrorist adversary and target country response to effects based activities... [and] work with joint military planners and the inter-agency community to determine planning options to achieve War on Terrorism efforts and objectives’. Qualifications include a BA or BS degree, with ‘knowledge of political science, economics, social anthropology, infrastructure, or information operations preferred’.

6. The Mitre Corporation is advertising a ‘sr. artificial intelligence engineer’ position ‘to play a role in applying modeling and simulation as an experimental approach to social and behavioral science problems of national significance... [and] to apply social sciences to critical national security issues.’ Desirable applicants will have a ‘PhD in a social science discipline (e.g. anthropology, sociology, sociolinguistics, medical anthropology, cultural geography, comparative social and cognitive psychology, cultural communication studies, science/technology studies, international labor/industrial relations, industrial/organizational psychology, comparative political science, public administration.)’

UPDATE:

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

Summary of another article in Anthropology Today June 2007: >> The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

SEE ALSO:

"Tribal Iraq Society" - Anthropologists engaged for US war in Iraq

Anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani: "Peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention"

Embedded anthropology? Anthropologist studies Canadian soldiers in the field

Fieldwork reveals: Bush administration is lying about the "war on terror" in the Sahara

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

USA: Censorship threatens fieldwork - A call for resistance

Two Books Explore the Sins of Anthropologists Past and Present

(via Savage Minds) Mary Douglas has died aged 86. She was the most widely read British social anthropologist of her generation, Richard Fardon writes in an orbituary in the Guardian. If she had to be recalled for a single achievement, Fardon continues, "it would be as the anthropologist who took the techniques of a particularly vibrant period of research into non-western societies and applied them to her own, western milieu".

Her book Purity and Danger "simply changed the way people saw their world and made sense of every day distinctions that we observed but failed to understand", Daniel Miller writes in the blog Material Culture

A Sunday Times survey of “Makers of the 20th Century” in 1991 listed Purity and Danger among the 100 most influential nonfiction works since 1945; only four women and four anthropologists made the list, according to The Times

SEE ALSO:

Mary Douglas critical of the new anthropology

Mary Douglas and commercial ethnography