A new phalanx of anthropologist-warriors are being recruited, carrying "cultural scripts" to battle.
Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera
"I received an email from BAE Systems the other day. According to the company's website, BAE is the largest military contractor on earth, with 100,000 employees globally "engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defence, security and aerospace systems in the air, on land and at sea."......
And besides, the email featured a nice photo of several Middle Eastern-looking women in hijab smiling and interacting with what appears to be an American or European woman, presumably a "sociologist".
She's not wearing a hijab, but she is wearing a keffiyeh-type scarf around her shoulders (I guess this means she's gone "native" and has developed a profound connection with her subjects).
Who knew BAE would be so interested in global feminist solidarity?
Academics in the kill chain
Well, I quickly understood, the company is in fact interested in no such thing. Instead, printed over the photograph in block lettering is the phrase "Human Terrain Systems" (HTS). I almost spilled my coffee.
I had assumed that the Human Terrain System was retired along with president Bush and the neocons who spent much of the 2000s trying to militarise academia in the service of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the email informed me otherwise. Instead, like so much of Bush administration policy towards the Middle East, the HTS program is clearly continuing under his successor.
Originally conceived in the mid-2000s as the Iraqi insurgency gained strength and the US was making little headway in Afghanistan, the "Human Terrain Systems" program brought anthropologists and other scholars or so-called experts into the military "kill chain" to advise field commanders on how better to interact with the local populations in the territories under occupation......"
Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera
"I received an email from BAE Systems the other day. According to the company's website, BAE is the largest military contractor on earth, with 100,000 employees globally "engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defence, security and aerospace systems in the air, on land and at sea."......
And besides, the email featured a nice photo of several Middle Eastern-looking women in hijab smiling and interacting with what appears to be an American or European woman, presumably a "sociologist".
She's not wearing a hijab, but she is wearing a keffiyeh-type scarf around her shoulders (I guess this means she's gone "native" and has developed a profound connection with her subjects).
Who knew BAE would be so interested in global feminist solidarity?
Academics in the kill chain
Well, I quickly understood, the company is in fact interested in no such thing. Instead, printed over the photograph in block lettering is the phrase "Human Terrain Systems" (HTS). I almost spilled my coffee.
I had assumed that the Human Terrain System was retired along with president Bush and the neocons who spent much of the 2000s trying to militarise academia in the service of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the email informed me otherwise. Instead, like so much of Bush administration policy towards the Middle East, the HTS program is clearly continuing under his successor.
Originally conceived in the mid-2000s as the Iraqi insurgency gained strength and the US was making little headway in Afghanistan, the "Human Terrain Systems" program brought anthropologists and other scholars or so-called experts into the military "kill chain" to advise field commanders on how better to interact with the local populations in the territories under occupation......"
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