The New Dark Age

28 March, 2010

Anthropologists’ Resistance to Militarisation

The project [‘Combating Terrorism by Countering Radicalisation’] “provoked a furious response from academics”, mainly anthropologists, “who claimed it was tantamount to asking researchers to act as spies for British intelligence” (Baty 2006). James Fairhead, who works for the ESRC’s Strategic Research Board and on its International Committee, declared it is appalling that these proposals were not discussed in any of these committees (quoted in Houtman 2006). Opposition to the project grew significantly after the plans were published in the Times Higher Educational Supplement. As a result, it was withdrawn before its closing date on November 8th 2006.
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/anthropology/documents/marrades.doc

“how creativity can help in the study of terrorism and forensic science and in how the outcome or story from that is told”

…Firstly, let me introduce myself: I’m Wendy Wilkinson and I head up the Culture Division in the Scottish Government. As well as all things culture, my remit also includes the creative industries…

However, I’m emailing about a quite separate matter. And it may appear rather bizarre, but bear with me. I’d like to invite you to an informal meeting I’m arranging on 8 April, at my office in Victoria Quay, Edinburgh. And it’s to brainstorm/discuss how creativity can help in the study of terrorism and forensic science and in how the outcome or story from that is told. This stems from work that Brian Lang, former principal of St Andrews University, is doing to arrange a conference joining up the centre for study of terrorism at St Andrews university, with the forensic science centre at Strathclyde university and the centre for terrorism at the  University of Central Oklahoma. Brian and I are both keen to explore how creativity can contribute and we recognised the first step would be to consult our own creative talent here in Scotland. hence my invite. I am planning to invite a couple of people from the computer gaming industry and perhaps a writer or artistic director, so a small group and it would be attended by Brian and the President of the University of Central Oklahoma who is over here for a visit then.

I do hope that you can attend and would be grateful if you could let me know what time you may be available on the 8th.

kind regards

Wendy Wilkinson
Deputy Director: Culture
Scottish Government
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh EH6 6QQ

The eleven originators of the Pledge are deeply concerned that the “war on terror” threatens to militarize anthropology in a way that undermines the integrity of the discipline and returns anthropology to its sad roots as a tool of colonial occupation, oppression, and violence.  We felt compelled to draft the Pledge to say that there are certain kinds of work—for example, covert work, work contributing to the harm and death of other human beings, work that breaches trust with our research participants, and work that calls other anthropologists into suspicion—that anthropologists should not undertake.  In many ways we are restating the position that Franz Boas famously articulated* in 1919.  We encourage you to sign the Pledge as a way to support this position on ethical work in the discipline and as a way to make a statement to government and military officials, the social science and other scientific communities, and the broader public that that anthropologists will not participate in such work or support wars of occupation.
http://sites.google.com/site/concernedanthropologists/faq

* “A soldier whose business is murder as a fine art, a diplomat whose calling is based on deception and secretiveness, a politician whose very life consists in compromises with his conscience, a business man whose aim is personal profit within the limits allowed by a lenient law — such may be excused if they set patriotic deception above common everyday decency and perform services as spies. They merely accept the code of morality to which modern society still conforms. Not so the scientist. The very essence of his life is the service of truth. We all know scientists who in private life do not come up to the standard of truthfulness, but who, nevertheless, would not consciously falsify the results of their researches. It is bad enough if we have to put up with these, because they reveal a lack of strength of character that is liable to distort the results of their work. A person, however, who uses science as a cover for political spying, who demeans himself to pose before a foreign government as an investigator and asks for assistance in his alleged researches in order to carry on, under this cloak, his political machinations, prostitutes science in an unpardonable way and forfeits the right to be classed as a scientist.” (Franz Boas, in a letter to The Nation, 1919)

Workshop of Military Anthropology in the UK
We find other, smaller-scale examples of universities and their academics seeking to cash in on “terror research” by offering their knowledge as a source of “protection.” One example involves the “Culture in Conflict Symposium” at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, on 16 – 17 June 2010 http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/cds/symposia/cic10.jsp. It includes a Workshop on “Spatial Sociocultural Knowledge” (read human terrain) and followed by a one-day Military Anthropology Workshop. There is no clearer expression of the way academics have become comfortable players in the pyramid scheme of war corporatism than when they call themselves “military anthropologists.”
http://zeroanthropology.net/

Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”
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.
http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2007/protests_against_british_research_counci