[Discussion] Savage Minds: is a collective web log devoted to bringing anthropology
to a wider audience... (http://savageminds.org)
Sule Tarakcioglu
suletar@bilkent.edu.tr
Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:39:41 -0700
From: "Serguei Alex. Oushakine" <sao15@columbia.edu>
http://savageminds.org/
Savage Minds
About Savage Minds:
Savage Minds is a collective web log devoted to both bringing
anthropology to a
wider audience as well as providing an online forum for discussing the
latest
developments in the field. We are a group of Ph.D. students and professors
teaching and studying anthropology and are excited to share it with you.
You can
find out more about the contributors by clicking on the "about" pages on the
right for each of us.
Anthropologists as Counter-Insurgents
Posted by oneman under Academia, Culture Notes
...It is generally assumed that anthropologists are CIA agents or otherwise
connected with Western military apparatus. It certainly helps
anthropologists in
dealing with these accusations if they can honestly say that they are
not. This
is why most anthropologists look down on covert research, why Franz Boas
exposed
the activities of anthropologists who had worked as spies during WWI
�in
the words of the current referendum to uncensure Boas:
Boas insisted on the distinction between researchers � scientists
whose
lives are dedicated to �the service of truth� � and
spies
under the
employment of the US Government�.
It is crucial that anthropologists be taken at their word in the
field�not
being able to dispel these perceptions can be harmful not only to our
research, but to our lives. ...