The American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting is over - here a quick round-up of the conference coverage on the web. Anthropology and the military was a hot topic this year as well as Inside Higher Ed informs in three articles: Accordi…

We have discussed a lot about the strengthening ties between the military and universities in the USA and Britain, but similar things are happening in Scandinavia. And there is no public debate about it here. One example is a research center that was…

Do you want to know what anthropologists who work for the US military in Afghanistan write about the people America is at war with? I resist to believe it but according to the Syndney Morning Herald they call some Afghan societies for "utter savages".…

“A dysfunctional ethnic and tribal brawl has been the norm in Afghanistan for centuries. Afghanistan is a mess. ” Who said that? A frustrated U.S. military officer? No, a professor of anthropology, Robert L. Moore. In his article Tribes, Corruption Ai…

Make Peace. Photo: Danny Hammontree, flickr "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" is a popular slogan from the antiwar-movement. But nowadays, USA with their allies are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and still lots of people enlist in the military,…

Maximilian Forte is out with a new book on anthropology, military and imperialism. Yes, you can order it the usual way. But you can also download it as pdf file, for free! On his blog he explains how he combined web and paper, how he set up his own p…

Isn’t it overstating it a bit to call this the militarization of anthropology? Sounds less like the military is impacting anthropology, but more like anthropology is impacting the military here. This is obviously fraught, but isn’t there…

Yes, I agree, there might be something positive about teaching the military to be less ethnocentric, but I suppose you’ll agree that teaching them anthropology and doing counterinsurgency work is not the same.

Another simple-minded attempt to mix up guerilla-warfare and suicide-bombing. As suicide-bombing is not even analyzed within its ideology, understanding has to be waited for. The similar tactic in Sri-Lanka is enough “fact” for the autor, to…

BENIN TO QUAI BRANLY: A MUSEUM FOR THE ARTS OF THE OTHERS OR FOR THE STOLEN ARTS OF THE OTHERS? Stolen art objects remain stolen objects even in a new museum. The exhibition on Benin arts: Benin: Kings and Rituals - Court Arts from Nigeria will be at…

“Given that the ‘war on terror’ once again finds intelligence agencies seeking help from academia, we need to consider and evaluate these past interactions and be mindful that intelligence agencies have at times been silent consumers of our…

The Rohingya have certainly gotten one of the worst deals in Burma, but the mainstream media is really reporting on them no less than they report on the Arakanese, or Kachin, or Naga, or any of the other ethnic minorities. It has only been very recently…

The Charlie Rose Show featuring Sarah Sewall and Montgomery McFate talked about many things that are similar to what Metro Police did in Baltimore to lower crime in the 90’s by changing to a Community Policing Model. Counter Insurgency, in some…

The Charlie Rose Show featuring Sarah Sewall and Montgomery McFate talked about many things that are similar to what Metro Police did in Baltimore to lower crime in the 90’s by changing to a Community Policing Model. Counter Insurgency, in some…

I think I do have to comment on the workshop-reviews on the EASA-page: Not all of the reviewers seemed to have followed all of the papers fully-through. A few of the summaries just seem to be copy-pasted from the workshops abstracts and can’t be…

Thanks for posting this. I think they make excellent points, without exception above. They should follow their own advice too, and not publish such pieces in closed access sources behind pay walls, or at least publish another version, maybe longer,…

Thanks a lot for your comment, Max. Yes, recently, the balance ideal has been often criticised, like for example during the war on Gaza or when debating climate change. And of course, there are no public debates on immigration without right-wing…

First, Lorenz, well done on giving a fair read to both my comments and context of the colonial Indian Army quote. Second, the Afghanistan research of the Naval Postgraduate School’s CCS is an object of scorn among military and non-military…

Thanks to both of you for this discussion. Interesting to hear that “the Naval Postgraduate School’s CCS is an object of scorn among military and non-military researchers alike". Is there some HTS-research on Afghanistan online that you can…

Max, you seem to imply that I think Loyd’s death was more important than the deaths of many thousands of Afghans. I do not. But you yourself have spend many more blog-lines on Loyd and Bhatia than on those thousands of individuals who happen not…