Fatal Attraction A Note on Embedded Social Sciences
The recent debates concerning the revealed affinities between anthropology and the U.S. military (most notably highlighted through the now famous Human Terrain System program in Irak and Afghanistan) tend to minimize not only the role of other social sciences engaged in the war efforts, but most importantly, the massive mobilization of other civil apparatuses on the ground (multinationals, private security agencies, non-governmental organizations). To loose sight that anthropology is inscribed in such a general deployment focuses too much attention on the discipline itself and less on the profound shifts in politics in contemporary settings. Mapping the role that anthropology holds in such circumstances will therefore serve less to question whether the discipline’s use is justified, authentic and ethical according to pre-established or identifiable deontological, conceptual and methodological criteria, than to try to interrogate some of the categorical blurring in effect.