
Anthropologists in the SecurityScape
Ethics, Practice, and Professional Identity
Left Coast Press Inc
1st Edition
Published on 1. November 2011
Book
Hardback
277 pages
978-1-61132-012-1 (ISBN)
Description
As the military and intelligence communities re-tool for the 21st century, the long and contentious debate about the role of social scientists in national security environments is dividing the disciplines with renewed passion. Yet, research shows that most scholars have a weak understanding of what today's security institutions actually are and what working in them entails. This book provides an essential new foundation for the debate, with fine-grained accounts of the complex and varied work of cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropologists and archaeologists doing security-related work in governmental and military organizations, the private sector, and NGOs. In candid and provocative dialogues, leading anthropologists interrogate the dilemmas of ethics in practice and professional identity. Anthropologists in the SecurityScape is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand or influence the relationship between anthropology and security in the twenty-first century.
Reviews / Votes
"These close studies move us past dogmas to data in discussion of relations between anthropology and the military."--James Peacock, University of North Carolina "When their governments wage wars, what can scholars do? For anthropologists in particular, what are the practical, ethical and civic responsibilities that come with scholarly knowledge of other cultures? As the blast radius of 9/11 rolled outward, serving as the pretext for liberations that turned into occupations, the erosion of civil liberties at home, and an explosion of extra-judicial killings abroad, it also fueled heated and adversarial responses among American anthropologists to these urgent questions. This volume expands the debate, presenting the voices of smart, principled scholars and practitioners who explain how and why they work in professional settings that are alien or suspect to most academic anthropologists. Conceived and executed in a spirit of even-tempered, open-minded and empirically-informed conversation, this volume constitutes a vital resource for anyone curious about the diverse roles and locations of 'security anthropologists.' It also opens a substantive dialogue around concepts of public engagement, professional vocation and moral complacency which are of pressing concern for the discipline's future." --Keith Brown, Associate Professor, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University "A gripping read through a charged yet respectful high-stakes conversation about the position of anthropological work in the security sector. Anthropologists in the SecurityScape is packed with personal stories from anthropologists working in a wide range of roles both in and around the military and other defense and security institutions. The contributors' distinct voices shine through: teachers and trainers, humanitarian workers and intelligence analysts, religious scholars and cultural resource managers along with many others. They reveal the tensions faced in their encounters with those in the "securityscape" as well as with colleagues in the anthropological community. This book excels in achieving the dialogical potential of anthropological work. It promises to challenge and extend understanding of the motivations and realities of engagement - as well as non-engagement - with the security sector. More broadly, it raises questions relevant to anthropological work with consequential institutions of all kinds. Anyone invested in informing a public anthropology is sure to learn from this book." --Melissa Cefkin, Author of "...Ethnography and the Corporate Encounter "This engaging and important casebook explores the dynamics of how, when, why and under what conditions and with what risks, anthropologists have engaged with the large and expanding security apparatus of the United States. The collection is broad, interesting and could not be more timely." --Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley "Anthropologists in the SecurityScape is conversational in tone and structure and is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate anthropology students or anyone studying the social sciences for an understanding of the human experience. Described as an experiment in representation, the book's subject concerns its authors' professional lives, as they exist in the present securityscape. Its cases are very enlightening when it comes to illustrating specifically how the social sciences have discovered and also become relevant to military intelligence agencies. Ultimately, taken as a whole, the book's organization as a depiction of the reflexivity necessary for what Marcus describes as the revision of settled ways of thinking is valuable as an example of how this approach can be reproduced in other areas of academia." See the full review at: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=4331 "... --Chelsea Woodhouse, Anthropology Review DatabaseMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Walnut Creek
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
612 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-61132-012-1 (9781611320121)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Robert Albro | Monica Schoch-Spana | George Marcus
Anthropologists in the SecurityScape
Ethics, Practice, and Professional Identity
E-Book
06/2016
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download

Robert Albro | Monica Schoch-Spana | George Marcus
Anthropologists in the SecurityScape
Ethics, Practice, and Professional Identity
E-Book
06/2016
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download

Robert Albro | George Marcus | Laura A. McNamara
Anthropologists in the SecurityScape
Ethics, Practice, and Professional Identity
Book
11/2011
1st Edition
Left Coast Press Inc
€60.00
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
Albro, Robert; Marcus, George; McNamara, Laura A; Schoch-Spana, Monica
Content
Introduction; Chapter 1 The Winds of Politics, Change, and Social Science Transformation in a Military Research Institution, Rebecca Goolsby; Chapter 2 Identity Management in the Federal Government: How an Andean Archaeologist Became a Social Scientist, Charlene Milliken; Chapter 3 Public Anthropology and Multitrack Dialoguing in the Securityscape, Robert Albro; Chapter 4 Blurring the Boundaries between Anthropology and Intelligence Analysis, David Abramson; Chapter 5 Intelligence Work: The Mundane World of High-Consequence Analysis, Mark Dawson; Chapter 6 Interdisciplinary Research in the National Laboratories, Laura A. McNamara; Chapter 7 Standing at the Crossroads of Anthropology, Public Health, and National Security, Monica Schoch-Spana; Chapter 8 Culture in/Culture of the United States Naval Academy, Clementine Fujimura; Chapter 9 Teaching Culture at Marine Corps University, Paula Holmes-Eber; Chapter 10 Protecting the Past to Secure the Future: An Archaeologist Working for the Army, Laurie Rush; Chapter 11 Staying Safe: Aid Work and Security in Afghanistan, Patricia Omidian; Chapter 12 On the Ethics of Graduated Disclosure in Contexts of War, Flagg Miller; Chapter 13 Ethical Considerations from the Study of Peacekeeping, Robert A. Rubinstein; Chapter 14 Hazardous Field Operations: Romanian-American Joint Humanitarian Training, Peter Van Arsdale; Chapter 15 Retaining Intellectual Integrity: Introducing Anthropology to the National Security Community, Jessica Glicken Turnley; Chapter 16 How Critical Should Critical Thinking Be? Teaching Soldiers in Wartime, Anna Simons; con Conclusion, George E. Marcus;