The anthropologist as a soldier.

There was a very interesting discussion recently in the anthropology department of Penn. The discussion was stemmed from the NY times article that reported the work of an anthropologist named "Tracy," who works for the American Army in Afghanistan (for the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?hp)

Of course, this article entails many ethical and professonal dilemmas that sparked a pretty interesting discussion... Below is a excellent response by a fellow anthropologist and a very close friend, who wanted to be identified as the "furry carpathine sheep." (Slightly edited)

Here's my "doi bani" (2 Romanian cents, ironically, an expression that means "worthless" in Ro), or, if you prefer something more familiar, meine drei Groschen :What is actually the subject of discussion seems to be split into several issues, whereas the emotional attitude seems to be the same in all cases. I suggest we look at the ramifications.

First, we are dealing with the immediate, literal issue of the employment of anthropologists in the armed forces as troops, similar to engineers, doctors, and chaplains. Second, there is the question of the involvement of anthropology in helping US government agencies, and its ethical consequences. Finally, and most generally, we are discussing applied anthropology in principle, and its ethical dilemmas. So, when people express outrage, which one of these things are they talking about? (My list is by no means exhaustive, and anyone could rearrange the issues whichever way they wanted, the fact that there are different levels of ramification of the problem remains).

There are some contradictions at play here. Regarding the first level, the employment of individual persons with degrees in anthropology to work for the military is somewhat irrelevant - it is a personal choice related to employment and does not concern the rest of academic anthropologists. Does anyone know "Tracy"? Who is she? Does she publish? This is not an anthropologist, but a military technician with a specialization in tribesmen, or Pashtun, or whatever.

Second, should academic anthropologists be involved in governmental actions? Well, this is a question of what academic anthropologists of the US nationality believe about their government - is it a transparent, democratic, benign government, or a cunning, imperial, secretive, fascist dictatorship? Or something in between (for the popular fence-dwellers)? I for one cannot see what is wrong with top experts in the anthropology of the government offering their consulting services to the government in a public fashion as to how they see things ought to be done. If, on the other hand, they believe that the government will misuse the information, shouldn't they be on the streets protesting the new Order? Or making public announcements about what they as top experts in the culture of the zone think, and why their thinking is ignored or suppressed by said government? I do not expect to see outrage regarding any other form of cooperation with the government. Or should anthropology be fundamentally CONTRA? The gadfly...

Finally, on the application of anthropology in general, what are the ethics of supporting a particular political cause with one's scholarly work? Academics enjoy a privileged position in society - at least in theory, they have access to resources for collecting information, and for disseminating it FREELY. This is academic freedom. However, this is based on the concept that knowledge production in and of itself, is valuable, a concept in which perhaps only old-fashioned folk still believe, but nevertheless one that forms the basis for this freedom we enjoy - honesty independent of interest . When academics openly involve their research with political agendas (and this does not mean just right-wing, war-mongering agendas, but all agendas, communist, racist, liberal, neo-liberal, pacifist, environmentalist etc.), they enter a different realm. I'm just trying to separate research from action, knowledge production from the use of knowledge for a predetermined purpose. Just to pre-empt more 'outrage', I am not saying this other realm is dirty, disgusting, immoral, less intelligent, or otherwise reprehensible in any way. But it is different. Once outside the realm of knowledge production it is harder and harder to defend from political attacks - this is a risk that must be assumed by those who engage in such endeavors. They are subject to ethical concerns not related to the research, but to the cause they are serving. Therefore, the ethical concerns should be different for each of the causes in question. In this case, "is the Iraq war morally correct?".

Now, there are many anthropologists who wish to devote themselves to applying anthropological concepts to trying to find the solution to a crisis, injustice, etc. For instance, the famous Grameen Bank lending strategies in rural Bangladesh were highly influenced by an anthropologically-informed micro-economic policy that emphasized lending to women. Business anthropology seems to be a hot topic nowadays, as evidenced by the multiple courses taught in our department. Where am I going with this? Well, I ask what is the difference in offering expertise to a Bank or to the Army? Or at least being interested in such a cooperation? (as I stated before, I don't consider anonymous people who work for any institution with non-transparent results to be 'anthropologists', so I'm referring to people who apply anthropological concepts in a public fashion). Imagine for example, that, like in the Grameen Bank case, the Army allowed anthropologists to videotape and publish their findings - of course, they might not, but I bet none of us has asked what terms we could get from the Army for carrying research under their auspices.

I'm not condemning either of these practices, but I simply do not think that 'outrage' is the answer that will sort these things out. Provided transparency, dissemination, public discourse, etc., wouldn't it be good for all of us to know how Iraq soldiers relate to the local population? How they think about them, what are they afraid of, what they wish for, why they think they're there etc. Such interactional data are not covered by most newspaper reporters, because of a lack of a way of thinking that anthropology has developed over the last hundred years. Have prominent, politically active, anthropologists had meetings and petitions to inform the US government of their thinking on these issues both prior to the war and during it?

I simply don't know. There are benefits, but they have to be weighed in the right context. In my opinion, Aye this or Nay that doesn't cut it.