"Reviewing the AAA’s Report on Anthropology and the Military
Reviewing the AAA’s Report on Anthropology and the Military
About four months ago I promised to produce an essay/notes reviewing and summarizing the 04 November, 2007, release of the report by the AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities, whose term of work began in November of 2005. The report is titled “AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities” and is available at:
Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?
The collaboration between the U.S. military and anthropologists has been criticized for both political and ethical reasons. According to a recent article in Newsweek, the whole project could end as a fiasco: The implementation of the $40 million project has fallen short, according to more than a dozen people involved in the program that were interviewed by Newsweek.
Open Source & Open Access Textbooks
In “Professors Gone Paperless” in the April 16, 2008, issue of Inside Higher Ed, Elia Powers writes of a growing campaign in the U.S., by Student Public Interest Research Groups and www.maketextbooksaffordable.org/ to promote the use of free, open source e-textbooks. Professors and organizations are also invited to sign a statement in support of the campaign, on the same link provided here. I will reproduce an extract of the article below:
The Military-Academic Complex in the U.S.: “The Minerva Consortia”
By Maximilian ForteMore News on Anthropology and Counterinsurgency
Website for “Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency” Conference Now Live
The website for the University of Chicago’s “Anthropology and Global Counter-Insurgency” conference is now available at http://anthroandwar.uchicago.edu/. You can read abstracts for each of the three panels and for the individual presentations. Notice that I’ve somehow been given the last word…
Camelot Revisited: The Department of Defense’s New Plan for Academia
In a recent speech before the Association of American Universities, Defense Secretary Robert Gates described his ideas for a new military-academia partnership. The “Minervia Consortium”, as he calls his vision, would offer funding and research assistance for researchers across academia, in order to build up the military’s understanding of the world the operate in and create a pool of experts the military can draw on.
Microtargeting or Macrotargeting? On Politics and Culture
What’s for Dinner? The Pollster Wants to Know sets out a basic anthropological argument—people’s behaviors and traits are not isolated, discrete units, easily analyzed as individual phenomenon. They are linked, interconnected, patterned.
As Kim Severson opens, “If there’s butter and white wine in your refrigerator and Fig Newtons in the cookie jar, you’re likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Prefer olive oil, Bear Naked granola and a latte to go? You probably like Barack Obama, too. And if you’re leaning toward John McCain, it’s all about kicking back with a bourbon and a stuffed crust pizza while you watch the Democrats fight it out next week in Pennsylvania.”
