Anthropologists in the SecurityScape

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 Database