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Anthropology in China: IUAES-conference boycott due to Uyghur massacre

Published on July 24, 2009 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, ethics, indigenous people / minorities, politics, Us and Them

(UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming? / UPDATE 30.7: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities )
Last year, the conference was cancelled by the Chinese government for fear of protests. Next week, the 16th congress by the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) finally will be held – but without the IUAES vice president Petr Skalník. He decided not to participate due to the recent massacre where several hundred Uyghurs were killed.

“I will not meet and shake hands with people who must be responsible for the above tragedy”, Skalnik writes in a letter to the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People´s Republic of China that he also emailed to a large number of anthropologists (and that was forwarded to me), hoping many will read it.

Two weeks ago, Skalnik received an invitation letter from the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, indicating that on July 26, on the eve of the 16th World Congress of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), “several IUAES high officials” will meet in Beijing with “a senior State leader of China”:

This invitation was a surprise to me as I was not at all planning to travel via through Beijing on my way to Kunming. No agenda for the meeting was mentioned except that it is „in honor of the IUAES leadership“.

At the same time as the letter was coming, there was this massacre happening in Urumqi:

Although this grave event directly touching the field of activities of your Commission, namely ethnic affairs, there were no signs either directly from PRC SEAC or from the Chinese Association of Anthropology and Ethnology.

My life experience of studying ethnic problems in other countries (e.g. South Africa, West Africa, Soviet Union and Europe) have taught me that conflicts of the size like that in Urumqi this July or Lhasa last year are not and cannot be caused just by some malicious plotters. There must be also a deal of responsibility on the side of the power holders, your Commission not excluded. However, no self-criticism and constructive proposal for remedy has come out from China till this very day.

Therefore, I have to turn down your invitation for the above ethical reasons. Human rights were served a crippling blow in Urumqi by apparently wrong analysis and heavy-handed response of the Chinese state, your Commission included. I will not meet and shake hands with people who must be responsible for the above tragedy. I will not accept reimbursement monies and other perks mentioned from the Chinese state. I protest in this way against policies which smack of demographic aggression and ethnocide.

I also will not participate in the Kunming congress (to be held next week, July 27-31, 2009) because I do not want to be part of overt and/or tacit legitimation of evidently erroneous handling of nationality question in China. As a person with a particularly strong IUAES loyalty who participated in almost all its congresses and other events starting from Permanent Council meeting in Prague back in 1962 I was very keen on participating and playing active role as a Distinguished Speaker, member of the Executive Council (EC) of IUAES, Czech member of the Permanent Council of IUAES, chairperson of the Commission on Theoretical Anthropology (COTA) and thrice paper giver. The above mentioned reasons, however, thwarted these intentions. Under present circumstance I would not feel free to express my thoughts and research findings.

He also indicates possible discrimination of Chinese scholars with ethnic minority background who were not able to register for the conference. Also some scholars from abroad were not able to obtain Chinese visa.

He closes with these lines:

I would like to emphasize that this letter was written by myself alone and I express my views freely as I did when I criticised apartheid policies in South Africa, misguided theories and practices in ethnic field in the Soviet Union or failure of American anthropologists to warn the then U.S. government of the adverse consequences of its war plans and acts in Iraq. Anthropologists and ethnologists by the nature of their work which includes ethics of research, respect for human life and culture, do not know of any „internal affairs“, especially if human rights are violated.

I have made a pdf of the documents, including the letter he sent by email.

UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming?

UPDATE 30.7.09: More propaganda: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities (Xinhua 30.7.09)

Concerning the canceled conference, see China Cancels IAES (Savage Minds, 8.5.08) and Anthropology: a Taboo Topic in China? (Angry Chinese Blogger, 24.5.08).

(UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming? / UPDATE 30.7: IUAES-anthropologists "praise" Chinese government's relation to minorities )
Last year, the conference was cancelled by the Chinese government for fear of protests. Next week, the 16th…

When should anthropologists work for the military?

Published on July 23, 2009 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, ethics, politics

The debate on anthropology and the military is extremly polarized. Mats Utas, Head of the Africa Programme at the Swedish National Defence College, has written an interesting article where he challenges both sides. Among other things, he shows that there might be legitimate reasons for collaboration with the military even if you are against the U.S. war of terror.

“I currently would see many problems in cooperating with the US armed forces, or the Danish army for that matter, due to their cumbersome commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, I still describe the debate within our discipline as one of moral panic”, he writes and asks:

It is important to remember that all relationships with the military do not imply the same type of structural involvement, just as doing work with the military means different things depending on which country one works in (it is obvious that engaging with the armed forces in Sweden or Switzerland is not the same as in US or North Korea).
(…)
Sweden is, still today, more or less neutral and has kept a low profile in the war on terror (or the terror on terror), and Swedish military interest in Africa is by and large peacekeeping missions. The Africa programme at the Defence College aims at servicing the army with knowledge about areas in conflict and potential future conflicts where a Swedish EU or UN force could employ as a neutral (as neutral as one can be anyway) and stabilising force.

It was far from an easy task, but after looking at pros and cons I decided to accept the offer of the Swedish National Defence College and I am currently directing their Africa programme. Does this imply that I fit into the derogatory category of ‘mercenary anthropologists’?

Specific task and regional political logic should guide us in how we commit ourselves, he writes and lists some tasks that anthropoloigists should not get involved with and that is for instance direct military intelligence:

Where research material can not be published for military reasons we should certainly stay out: We must keep working with open sources. Similarly we should not be involved in intelligence work where individuals are pointed out (unless this information is already available in other open sources). There is nothing wrong in teaching militaries how to understand some of the social complexity that exists in social life instead of letting them base their actions on social stereotypes.
(…)
If social embeddedness is part of the method for a subtle social anthropology then we must ask ourselves what happens with us if we enter alongside a military machinery, such as the US or Nato forces in Iraq or Afghanistan? Is it at all possible to carry out anthropological research? What happens if the fly in the soup becomes a ‘Stealth bomber in the soup’? My argument is simply that anthropological research cannot be efficient if the researcher is brought in alongside the heavy guns of imperial machinery. An anthropologist in military fatigues cannot conduct high quality fieldwork – results become seriously flawed. In this situation what the mercenary anthropologist can give to the military power is impotent research findings; in consequence not very much to fear.

>> read the whole article over at Ruben Eberleins Africa blog (interesting comments as well)

Military anthropologist starts blogging about his experiences

Militarisation of Research: Meet the Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation

Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

“Arabs and Muslims should be wary of anthropologists”

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

War in Iraq: Why are anthropologists so silent?

Militarisation of Research: Meet the Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation

Published on June 20, 2009 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, ethics, Europe, politics, religion cosmology, University / Academia, Us and Them

We have discussed a lot about the strengthening ties between the military and universities in the USA and Britain, but similar things are happening in Scandinavia. And there is no public debate about it here.

One example is a research center that was founded last year by the Danish Ministry of Defence: the Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation.

It is part of the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus and focuses according to the website on radicalisation, ideologies and the international consequences of “Islamism”:

The Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation will assemble anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and theologians, who can contribute to the understanding of what happens when Islam becomes a political ideology with the objective of overthrowing Governments.

And the role of anthropologists? (source):

The anthropological part of the project will mainly focus on processes of radicalisation, on how radicalisation manifests itself gradually, through adaptation of new world views, values and lifestyle. Data will be collected through field work and surveys. The main hypothesis is that interaction between an individual in search for identity and a radicalised group play an important role in the process of radicalisation.

It is described as an independent research institute but I wonder how free it is when the establishment of the research center is part of the U.S-led “war on terror” and the premises are so clear. The project regards terrorism as a phenomenon that is mainly linked to islam. “Islamism” is according to the Minister of Defence, Søren Gade, the biggest threat to peace on earth. The Minister of Defence said that the research findings will play a central part in Denmarks policy in their so-called “war on terror”.

This world view is also reflected in many project descriptions, for example “Islamic Radicalisation among Muslims in Denmark. A Policy-oriented Empirical Study” by Shahamak Rezaei and Marco Goli:

Islamism is designated as the primary enemy of the democratic world, the omnipresent threat, and when, at the time of writing, at least two major wars are being fought against Islamism (in Afghanistan and Iraq). A vast number of billions drained from the Western state funds are being invested in national and international security.

The aim of this project is to provide empirical knowledge about factors that characterise the processes of radicalisation among young Muslims, e.g. from faith to politics, from religion to ideology, from civic society to the enemy.

The project’s key empirical questions to be answered are:
1. Which processes characterise the movement from “normal”, cultural or religious Muslims to radical Islamists, mainly from the group of young Danes with an immigrant background from third countries?
2. What motivates this process?
3. How can we identify radical Muslims?

Or take a look at Lene van der Aa Kühle’s project, called “The Cultic Milieu“:

The development of a European Islam has not followed the expectations of most researchers. Instead of forming and reforming in a liberal and secularized manner, radical Islam has developed as perhaps the most distinctive form of European Islam.

But the question of why some Muslims become radical has not been easy to answer. Studies propose that there is no single pattern which can explain how and why some young European Muslims become radical. Marginalization, deprivation and resentment may provide part of the explanation, but Muslims who are radicalized are often fairly well integrated and at least not any more marginalized and deprived than large part of the Muslim community.

Studies have failed to find any psychological deficiencies and while the impact of radical religious authorities seems in some cases to have had an influence, in others the process seems to be one of self-radicalization.

Then there is one project with a different perspective. Jonathan Githens-Mazer actually challenges much of what is said on the website. From his description of his project “Causes and Process of Radicalisation among Young Muslims in Leicester (UK)“:

While there exists a very real threat of violent extremism in the UK, this threat comes from an extremely small minority, and many young Muslims feel as though they are under constant surveillance and scrutiny despite rejecting any form of political violence.

These same young people also often feel as though their own individual efforts to empower communities to be resilient against violent radicalisation and violent extremism aren’t being understood and/or heralded by non-Muslim communities, politicians and the police and security services.

This project will seek to act as a corrective to this neglect of Muslim community perspectives on issues of radicalisation and violent extremism – by conducting a series of qualitative structured interviews with young Muslims, their parents, community social workers and Imams from Leicester (UK).

I’m not 100% sure what I should think of this but it reminds me of a British initiative, see my earler post Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”

There are lots of papers and links on the website that might be worth a study. Among the institutions they link to, we find The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.

Maximilian Forte has written several interesting posts on his Open Anthropology blog recently, among others What are the Pentagon’s Minerva Researchers Doing? and Militarizing the Social Sciences and Humanities in Canada

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

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

Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of Their Curious Relations

Two Books Explore the Sins of Anthropologists Past and Present

Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?

One example is a research…

Humain Terrain anthropologist attacked in Afghanistan has died

Published on January 10, 2009 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, ethics, Northern America

(via ‘Ilm al-insaan) An anthropologist embedded with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan to help soldiers understand local customs has died more than two months after she was doused with fuel and set on fire, according to ap.

Anthropologist Paula Loyd, 36, had been chatting with an Afghan man about fuel prices when he suddenly attacked her. She worked for contractor BAE Systems in a Human Terrain Team, in which social scientists and anthropologists are embedded with combat brigades, according to court records.

She earned a cultural anthropology degree from Wellesley College and spent much of her career abroad.
According to BAE Systems Loyd served in Bosnia as a U.S. Army reservist, working on civil military affairs projects. She had spent significant time in Afghanistan, working as a civilian military officer for a United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and also as a field program officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces.

>> read the whole ap-story (link updated)

Oh I see there is also a story about her death in Wire Third ‘Human Terrain’ Researcher Dead and on Open Anthropology The Unreported Death of Staff Sgt. Paula Loyd of the Human Terrain System: Third Researcher to Die with lots of additonal resources (Open Anthropology seems to be the first to have reported on her death)

“Anthropology = Smarter Counterinsurgency”

Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

(via 'Ilm al-insaan) An anthropologist embedded with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan to help soldiers understand local customs has died more than two months after she was doused with fuel and set on fire, according to ap.

Anthropologist Paula Loyd,…

What happened at the AAA meeting in San Francisco?

Published on November 27, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, ethics, fieldwork / methods

The American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting is over – here a quick round-up of the conference coverage on the web.

Anthropology and the military was a hot topic this year as well as Inside Higher Ed informs in three articles:

According to the article Anthropological Engagement, for Good and for Bad?, the debates were “generally civil but at times pointed”. During a “consistently unorthodox question and answer session cut the moderator, Rob Borofsky of Hawaii Pacific University follow-up questions and at one point barked at an audience member “That’s, it! Down!” as if addressing a dog. Many questioners grew unsettled with the panelists’ answers.

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists submitted a letter to AAA’s president, Setha Low, accompanied by 1,056 signatures of anthropologists who signed a “Pledge of Non-participation in Counterinsurgency.”Ethics and Militarization Dominate Anthropology Meeting, see Ethics and Militarization Dominate Anthropology Meeting (Inside Higher Ed 21.11.08)

Montgomery McFate cancelled her presentation. She was invited to give a keynote lecture at a conference of the Southwestern Anthropological Association, see Raised Eyebrows over Keynote Choice (Inside Higher Ed, 20.11.08)