Anthropology, Ethics, and the War against the Poor in Latin America
(CSU, Long Beach)
In October, 2007 the executive board of the American Anthropological Association issued a strong condemnation of the Human Terrain System, noting that anthropologists could not provide informed consent or assure that the subjects of their “research” activities would not be harmed. In addition, the board noted that the statement was being issued in the “context of a war that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles.” In November, 2007, a commission appointed by the executive board (which included members of the armed forces), provided a much lengthier report which argued that there were “opportunities” as well as perils to anthropologists engaging in the military. In specific, the report cited teaching in military colleges as an example of an opportunity to spread the concepts of cultural relativism and cultural critique to the military. Unlike the previous statement, there was no discussion of current or past wars and no discussion of international military operations. The current paper argues that the ethics of anthropological engagement can not be determined simply by looking at different categories of work (e.g., classroom vs. battlefield), but requires an examination of U.S. foreign policy and the ends to which military force is applied. In specific, the paper examines U.S. military involvement in Central and South America in the 20th and 21st centuries.