Anthropology of War 3102-FAOW

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
• identify anthropological concepts, theories, and debate related to the anthropology of war
• develop analytical and critical thinking skills aimed at examining war and postwar social reality in a specific socio-cultural context
• see and critically discuss connections between the epistemology and ethics of anthropologists concerned with war and its social repercussions

• Attendance and participation in the class debates = 50%
• presentations on a pre-assigned topic = 50%

Proper academic presentation should include:

Questions explaining the purpose of the presented text
Short biography of the author, a list of their most important academic works
Conclusions, hypotheses formulated in the text and the elaboration on how they are proven: on which source material are they based on? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
What are cognitive categories presented in the text and how are they conceptualized?
A reflection on what was most impressive or less impressive in the text
Questions for discussion

An Anthropology of War. Views from the Frontline. 2008. ed. A. Waterston, NY, Oxford: Berghahn Books
Ahmed, Akbar. 2013. Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam. Harrisburg: R.R. Donnelley.
American Anthropological Association. 2008. Final Report of the AAA's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC), pp. 72.
Giorgio Agamben. 2005. State of Exception, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Carleton Mabee. 1987. “Margaret Mead and Behavioral Scientists in World War II: Problems in Responsibility, Truth, and Effectiveness,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 23, p. 3-13.
Franz Boas, Scientists as Spies. The Nation, 1919, “Anthropology today”, vol. 21/3 (2005): 27.
Ruth Benedict. 1947.The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Patterns of Japanese Culture, London: Secker and Warburg (excerpt_.
Judith Butler. 2009. Frames of War. When is Life Grievable? London& New York: Verso (excerpt).
Thomas Cushaman, Anthropology and Genocide in the Balkans. An Analysis of Conceptual Practices of Power. “Anthropological Theory”, 4/1 (2004): 5-28.
John F. Embree, Anthropology and the War, Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (1915-1955) ,32/3 (1946): 485-495.
Andrew D. Evans. 2010. Anthropology at War: World War I and the Science of Race in Germany, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Brian Ferguson, How Can Anthropologists Promote Peace, Anthropology Today ,Vol. 4/ 3 (1998): 1-3
Gutorm Gjessin, The Social Responsibility of the Social Scientist, “Current Anthropology”, 1968, Vol. 9, No. 5, pp. 397-402.
Lesley Gill, Anthropology goes to war again, Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 50 (2007): 139–145.
Roberto González, “‘Human Terrain’: Past, Present and Future Applications.” Anthropology Today 24/1 (2008): 21–26.
_______________ 2009. American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Gusterson, Hugh. (2014). “Toward an Anthropology of Drones: Remaking Space, Time, and Valor in Combat.” The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms, From Flying Fortresses to Drones, ed by, M. Evangelista and H. Shue, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, pp.191- 206.
Brian Ferguson, and Leslie Farragher. 1988. The Anthropology of War: A Bibliography. New York: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
_________________How Can Anthropologists Promote Peace, Anthropology Today ,Vol. 4/ 3 (1998): 1-3
________________ “Ten Points on War.” Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 52 /2 (2008): 32-49.
_______________ (2013). “Full Spectrum: The Military Invasion of Anthropology.” Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing, ed. by N. L. Whitehead and S. Finnstrom) Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, pp. 85- 110.
Roberto González, ‘Human Terrain’: Past, Present and Future Applications. “Anthropology Today” 24/1 (2008): 21–26.
Roberto Gonzalez (red.). 2009. American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Joe Halpern, Anthropology and Conflict: Reflections on a Bosnian War 1997, “AnthroWatch”, 1 (1997)10-11.
Paula Holmes-Eber, Lost in Translation: Anthropologists and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, “Small Wars & Insurgances” 31:2, 340-358
Ivana Maček. 2009. “Civilian, soldier, deserter.” Sarajevo Under Siege: Anthropology in Wartime. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 3-33.
Dowler, Lorraine. “The Four Square Laundry: Participant Observation in a War Zone.” The Geographical Review, 91/1-2, (2001): 414-422.
Catherine Lutz, Anthropology in an Era of Permanent War, “Anthropologica”, 51/ 2 (2009): 367-379.
Bronislaw Malinowski An Anthropological Analysis of War, “American Journal of Sociology” , 46/ 4 (1941): 521-550.
Mamdani Mahmood. 2020, When Victims Become Killers. Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton University Press.
C.K. Mahmood Anthropology from the Bones: A Memoir of Fieldwork, Survival, and Commitment, “Anthropology and Humanism”, 33/1 (2008):.1-11.
Felix Moos, Richard Fardon, Hugh Gusterson, Anthropologists as spies, A response to ‘CIA seeks anthropologists’, news item in AT, “ Anthropology today” 21/3 (2005): 25-26.
Laura Nader, Chapter 27. The Anthropologist, the State, the Empire, and the “Tribe”: New Dimensions from Akbar Ahmed’s The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam, [in:] Contrarian Anthropology (Brookings Institution Press, 2013), 447-454.
Omidian, Patricia, “Living and working in a war zone: An applied anthropologist in Afghanistan.” Practicing Anthropology, 31 /2(2009): 4-11.
Brian R. Price, Human Terrain at The Crossroads “Joint Force Quarterly” 87/4, 2017, 69-75.
David Price, Anthropologists as Spies “The Nation”, November 20. 2000, pp. 1-5 .
______________“Cold War Anthropology: Collaborators and Victims of the National Security State,” Identities 4, 3–4 (1998): 389–430.
_______________, Gregory Bateson and the OSS: World War II and Bateson's Assessment of Applied
Anthropology, “Human Organization” , 57/ 4 (1998): 379-384.
________________2008. Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War, Durham, London: Duke University Press.
Doing Anthropology in Wartime and War Zones, 2010. Ed. Reinhard Johler, Christian Marchetii, Monike Scheer. World War I and the Cultural Sciences in Europe, Bielefeld.
Bronislaw Malinowski, An Anthropological Analysis of War, “American Journal of Sociology” , 46/ 4 (1941): 521-550.
Carleton Mabee. 1987. “Margaret Mead and Behavioral Scientists in World War II: Problems in Responsibility, Truth, and Effectiveness,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 23, p. 3–13.
Peter Mandler, One World, Many Cultures: Margaret Mead and the Limits to Cold War Anthropology, “History Workshop Journal” (2009), No. 68 (AUTUMN 2009), pp. 149-172.
Memory and World War II. An ethnographic approach, 2005. ed. F. Cappeletto, Beg Publishers.
Sundar Nandini. 2004.. “Toward an anthropology of culpability.” American Ethnologist, 31 (2): 145-163.
Patricia Omidian, “Living and working in a war zone: An applied anthropologist in Afghanistan.” Practicing Anthropology, 31 /2(2009): 4-11.
Petraeus, David H., and James F. Amos. 2006. Chapter 3, Chapter 8. [in:] Counterinsurgency (FM 3-24). Washington, DC: Department of the Army.
Nicola Perugini, Anthropologists at War: Ethnographic Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. “International Political Anthropology” Vol. 1 /2(2008): 213-227.
Antonius C.G.M. Robben Anthropology and Iraq War: An Uncomfortable Engagement, “Anthropology Today”, 1 (2009):. 1-3.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and Kenneth Roth. 2002. “Coming to Our Senses: Anthropology and Genocide.” In Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, edited by Alexander Laban Hinton,. University of California, pp. 348–81

Scheper-Hughes, N. & Philippe Bourgois. 2004. “Introduction: Making Sense of Violence.” Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. (Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois: Editors) London: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1-3
Sundar Nandini. 2004.. “Toward an anthropology of culpability.” American Ethnologist, 31 (2): 145-163.
Antonius C.G.M. Robben Anthropology and Iraq War: An Uncomfortable Engagement, “Anthropology Today”, 1 (2009):. 1-3.
Jeffrey A. Sluka, 1990. “Participant Observation in Violent Social Contexts.” Human Organization, 49 (2): 114-126.
Marshall Sahlins. Preface; R. Gonzales, H. Gusterson, D. Price. Introduction; Gusterson, Militarizing Knowledge, D. Prince. Chapter 3, [in:] The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual. Network of Concerned Anthropologists. 2009
Sontag, Susan. 2009.. “Regarding the torture of others.” Cultures of Fear: A Critical Reader. (Editors: Uli Linke and Danielle Taana Smith) London: Pluto Press, pp. 272-281.
Surviving Field Research: Working in violent and difficult situations, ed. by Ch. Lekha Sriram et al, London: Routledge.
Andrew P. Vayda and Anthony Leeds, Anthropology and the Study of War, “Anthropologica” 3/ 2 (1961): 131-133
Catherine Wanner. Commemorations and the New Frontiers of War in Ukraine, ”Slavic Review” 78/2 (2019): 327-335.
Eric Wakin. 1992. Anthropology Goes to War: Professional Ethics and Counterinsurgency in Thailand, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

• Description of 3102-FAOW in USOSweb