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The Network of Concerned Anthropologists presents The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual
Thursday Sep 9, 7PM @ 2640 (2640 St. Paul St.)
As the war in Afghanistan drones on, and the armed occupation of Iraq morphs into a more politically palatable "soft occupation" relying on private mercenaries and various forms of diplomatic and economic control, one can only expect an increase in the demand for imperial anthropologists, willing to deploy their professional training in the service of American geopolitical hegemony.
With the release in 2006 of the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual (as a joint U.S. Army/U.S. Marines publication), it became painfully apparent that upper echelons of the American military were deeply interested in finding ways to harness anthropological expertise as a part of their apparatus of strategic control. The strategy outlined in the Manual was put into practice with the launch of the controversial "Human Terrain System" teams, in which anthropologists are "embedded" within the combat structure of the U.S. military, but it has also appeared in more diffuse forms, as seen in the recent revelations about the role of the US military in funding and directing research into the human geography of Oaxaca's insurgent indigenous population.
The Network of Concerned Anthropologists, which believes that such practices are not only ineffective and dangerous, but a serious breach of the ethical constraints to which an academic discipline in the social sciences must subscribe, has been one of the most important critical voices in the struggle to "unembed" anthropology, and we're exceptionally excited to welcome NCA members David Price, Hugh Gusterson, Andrew Bickford, and David Vine for a discussion of their collectively authored book The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society. Reception to follow.
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