Going ‘Tribal’: Notes on Social Scientists’ Involvement in Twenty-First Century Pacification Efforts
(San José State University)
The concept of the “tribe” has captured the imagination of U.S. military planners, even as most contemporary anthropologists avoid using the term. The military’s interest in “tribal engagement” stems in part from events in Iraq’s al-Anbar province, where the U.S. military has co-opted Sunni “tribal” leaders. Some social scientists have capitalized on these developments by doing contract work for the Pentagon specifically geared towards understanding and enlisting “tribal” peoples. For example, the influential Iraq Tribal Study—a report prepared by a private company consisting of anthropologists and political scientists among others—bluntly suggests employing colonial techniques (such as divide-and-conquer) for tightening social control in western Iraq. It also advocates bribing local leaders, a method that has become part of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency tactics. In recent months, American and British commanders have begun extending “tribal engagement” strategies to the Afghan war, even though critics suggest that such measures are likely to increase violence in Iraq and Afghanistan over the long run. This paper will give a contextual analysis of “tribal engagement” in the past and present, with a particular focus on the role of social scientists’ influence in this process.