• Bolivian anthropologist quoted on indigenous politics
In an article about the popularity of Evo Morales in Bolivia, the New York Times points to evidence of growing rivalries and dissatisfaction with him from other indigenous political leaders. Riccardo Calla, an anthropologist and the minister of indigenous affairs in a previous administration, comments that indigenous politicians span an ideological spectrum and are more varied than presented in the US media. Interestingly: the article later quotes an economist, Gonzalo Chávez, who says that even the IMF is happy with the Bolivian economy. Calla is identified as an “anthropologist.” Chávez is identified as a “Harvard-educated economist.” Obviously Calla earned his PhD somewhere. But apparently not from Harvard.
• Report on anthropology and the Human Terrain System unveiled at the AAA meetings
Several media sources mentioned the release of a report on the Human Terrain System at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia. The report was prepared by a panel of anthropologists who were charged by the AAA in 2007 to review the HTS. The report is strongly critical of anthropological involvement in HTS on the grounds that anthropological ethics cannot be maintained in a situation of war “where coercion and offensive tactics are always potentially present.” An article in the Chronicle for Higher Education provides extensive commentary from Robert Albro, cultural anthropologist and assistant professor of international communication at American University, who led the 11-person committee. Albro notes that anthropologists might be able to productively cooperate with the military in other ways, but the human-terrain program is probably best kept at arm’s-length.
• Anthropology in HTS an “abomination”
In an article in the political newsletter counterpunch, cultural anthropologist David Price sends a strong message that ethics-abiding anthropologists should stay clear of involvement with the HTS: “HTS cannot claim the sort of neutrality claimed by groups like Doctors Without Borders, or the International Committee of the Red Cross…Pretending that the military is a humanitarian organization does not make it so, and pretending that HTS is anything other than an arm of the military engaging in a specific form of conquest is sheer dishonesty.”
• Catching Fire a “best book of 2009”
Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham’s Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human made it to the Economist’s list of best books of 2009. It is praised as a “startling and persuasive analysis of the evolutionary role of cookery…” It did not, however, appear on the New York Times Book Review list, nor did any other book by an anthropologist.
• Richard Antoun, cultural anthropologist of the Middle East
Professor Richard Antoun died at the age of 77, stabbed to death in his office at Binghamton University. A graduate student at the University, who was Antoun’s dissertation advisee, is being held without bail.
anthropologyworks 