CEAUSSIC continues its work.

CEAUSSIC: Ethics Casebook

Dr. Laura McNamara

?The AAA?s Ad Hoc Commission on Anthropology?s Engagement with the Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) continues its work. Our main activities at present include: 1. the writing of a report to the AAA on the widely and hotly debated Human Terrain System of the U.S. Army, 2. The editing of a casebook illustrating the diversity of kinds of practicing anthropology, including associated ethical questions, with a primary emphasis upon the security sector broadly conceived, 3. And providing support for the AAA?s ongoing ethics process. In an effort to keep our work transparent and part of the public and disciplinary discussion of all of the above, CEAUSSIC is also going to be contributing a monthly entry to the AAA?s blog. Each entry, by different CEAUSSIC members, will address topics that have arisen or that we have been thinking about, which we will continue to discuss via the blog, a discussion in which we hope you will also participate.?

Concerned Anthropologists? Letter to Washington

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) is collecting signatures for a collective letter opposing Congress?s potential plan to expand the Human Terrain System Program.

This is what NCA wrote on their website:

Annual Meeting Podcast: War and Counter-Counterinsurgency

War and Counter-Counterinsurgency: Demilitarizing Anthropology and U.S. Society
(click to listen)

On December 5, 2009,  the Network of Concern Anthropologists (NCA) held a session at the AAA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia to discuss some of the issues they raised in their recently released Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual. The session was chaired and recorded by David Vine, assistant professor of anthropology at American University and a founding member of the NCA.

Why is there no Anthropology Journalism?

I feel like I hear a lot these days about anthropology?s need to be more engaged, more accessible, more readable and more relevant. There are obviously many different motives behind these concerns, from seeking attention to raising the prestige of the discipline to creating a public anthropology to being true to the concerns and needs of our subjects and collaborators.

Frédéric Keck: How I discovered Claude Lévi-Strauss through French Theory

Frédéric Keck has kindly provided us with a brief account of his personal exchanges with Lévi-Strauss, the legacy of his work, and how he contributed to Keck?s exploration of French anthropology. Keck is currently a researcher in social anthropology at the National Center for Scientific Research in France (CNRS):

New media and cultural change, 1980-2010

Still musing and reading in my scarce spare time about new media and cultural change from 1980 to 2010. Of possible interest:

NPR Continues Discussion on Military Engagement

NPR recently produced a story on anthropologist Paula Holmes-Eber?s work teaching operational culture at Marine Corps University in Quantico, VA. Listen to the interview or read the written summary, which also includes an active comment board. For additional coverage of this ongoing issue, see ?Anthropology and US Militarization: At Odd, No End/s? and ?Media Coverage of AAA?s Human Terrain Report? in the upcoming February issue of Anthropology News. To learn more about AAA?s positions on this topic, see the website of the Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities. Thanks to AAA member Guven Witteveen for these links.

Four Keywords for Haiti: Duty, Dehumanization, Trauma & Creative Survivalism
Wesleyan Argus
Ulysse is an Associate Professor of Anthropology, African-American Studies and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is the author of Downtown Ladies

Sarcophagus could provide clues to Mayan decline
AFP
OCOSINGO, Mexico ? A thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus discovered in southern Mexico could provide clues to the reason for decline of Mayan culture,