Anthropologists Launch ‘Human Terrain’ Probe
from Danger Room
David Axe
The American Anthropological Association, representing some 10,000 social scientists, has launched a formal study of the Army’s controversial, year-old “Human Terrain System,” which embeds civilian anthropologists and other social scientists in combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many academicians have objected to the HTS, which aims to improve the military’s cultural awareness, on grounds that researchers should be politically neutral. The criticism mounted when two HTS scientists were killed in a seven-week period beginning in May.
“HTS prompted a whole re-evaluation of our ethics,” Dr. Setha Low, AAA president, said during a teleconference yesterday. She said there are big issues:
- There are too few anthropologists involved in HTS’s eight five-person teams (six teams in Iraq, two in Afghanistan) to accurately represent the full range of theories and perspectives within academia.
- Researchers participating in combat operations perhaps cannot be intellectually honest. Their research “might be slanted by the needs of the Department of Defense,” Low said.
- Research should be distributed as widely as possible in order to invite peer review, but some HTS findings might be classified.
As Low spoke, I thought: Hold the phone. Doesn’t point one contradict points two and three? On one hand, Low is concerned that any anthropologists are working with the military; on the other hand, there are too few anthropologists involved. What gives?
Low laughed when I asked. HTS represents a “difficult ethical situation,” she said. “It’s not good to pretend there are none of these contradictions.”
