The Riverlands

So, I got this email from the UA Anthro listserv on a panel discussion taking place this week, and I find myself hoping they record it, ’cause I’d really like to hear it when I get back. Basically, it’s on the fact that the U.S. military is now hiring anthropologists as consultants in their counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course you can imagine the ethical debates raging over that one…but I find it of particular interest, not just because of the politics involved, but because it’s part of a deeper and more longstanding ethical question over what, exactly, anthropologists should and should not be doing with their research. Are we just there to passively record what we see? Is the pursuit of knowledge in and of itself enough to justify our existence, or does there need to be a more concrete application to our work? Since I do consider anthropology a science, I have to point out that it’s odd that this question even comes up in anthropology, while in most scientific fields–biology, for example–research for its own sake, without any manifest application is considered anathema.

But if we agree that science is there specifically and primarily to improve people’s lives in concrete ways, that brings us “applied anthropologists” to an even trickier question, which is how we ought to apply anthropology, what is ethical and what isn’t. Obviously again, as in any science, the research you do should first and foremost benefit the people on whom the research is conducted. That’s basic ethics. But the problem is, in anthropology, the question of what’s “beneficial” and what’s not gets a lot sticker than in, say, medicine. I suppose you might equate the debate to that going on in genetics, and the question of genetic engineering. Does the anthropologist, or the geneticist, have the wisdom or the right to dig into someone else’s genes/culture and start tweaking things? Of course there are plenty of examples you could give in support of both sides; “silencing” genes that result in mental or physical disabilities is a good argument in support, but then what if you make things worse? Likewise, I just read an interesting argument about how stopping the spread of a virulent disease among a certain people group meant their changing very long-standing and cherished mortuary practices…

So given that background, of course the question gets ten times as sticky when it comes down to military operations. Are these anthropologists supporting cultural imperialism, the occupation of one country by another? Or, in a perhaps unrelated question, does the mere fact that their research is covert, and that the people on whom it is being done are not being given access to it–does that in and of itself make it unethical? Or is the argument that their research prevents civilian casualties and brings a speedier end to the war enough to support their work?

There’s a very interesting blog on the question–follow the link below–which is being kept by an anthropologist at Stanford, not taking one side or the other, but just sort of meditating on the question and linking to various news articles of interest. As he points out, a lot of it really is less a question of principles than of practice…what exactly are these anthropologists up to on the ground out there?  Are they just trying to help the military figure out how to distinguish civilians from insurgents, or are they helping the military to figure out better ways to take out insurgents?  If the latter is the case, of course that’s a tougher issue to address than the first.  And that’s where the question of covertness comes into play, too…protecting military operations and troops versus being held responsible to a higher body for their ethical practices, as is the custom in science to prevent abuses…

http://www.savageminds.org/