Human Terrain Team member blog by Ben Wintersteen

Macquarie honours student Nikki Kuper introduces the blog of a Human Terrain Team member Ben Wintersteen.

Minerva awards announced – no anthropologists funded

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has just announced the winners of the first round of research funded under the Minerva Initiative.  This was a joint process whereby the National Science Foundation (NSF) and DoD determined funding for research on “Social and Behavioral Dimensions of National Security, Conflict and Cooperation” — i.e. social science research [...]

NYT reviews David Kilcullen book

This weekend’s issue of the Books of the (New York) Times has a review of The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen, the Australian anthropologist and mastermind of the Human Terrain programme. The review, which is very positive, describes Kilcullen as “one of the few brave souls who had the ear of people in the Bush White [...]

Some HTS updates

A couple of news items about the Human Terrain System have crossed my desk in the past week and I’m finally getting around to writing about them.  First, there’s an extended article in the Boston Globe about Paula Loyd, the HTS anthropologist who was killed in Afghanistan by a man who set her on fire [...]

Anthropology cover girl

I am looking forward to reading Alfons’s posts; meanwhile, a PhD student at VU’s anthropology department, Erella Grassiani, has made it to the cover of the student newspaper, Advalvas.  I am not clear yet whether this paper is really edited by students, but at least it does discuss political controversies. In this instance, it is [...]

Anthropologie sans frontières: Interview with Dr Alice Corbet

This post has been removed at the request of the author.

Nature calls for end to HTS

A Nature editorial calls for a swift end to HTS. Their objection: not the principle of putting anthropology and the social sciences in the service of the U.S. military in Iraq, but the fact that there have been several deaths, injuries, and a scandal in the form of hiring as an Iraqi translator a [...]

USA Today covers anthropology and the military

A couple of people (thanks Greg and Laleh) sent me this link: USA Today has an article on anthropology and the military that covers debate over the Human Terrain System (HTS) at the last AAA meeting.  The article situates the anthropology-military relationship within the history of colonialism, reports that two HTS social scientists were killed [...]

More on HTS

It’s a pity that the month that Culture Matters won the Savage Minds blog award, we’ve been really slow. It’s the end of the semester right before everyone disappears for the summer, and I assume that everyone is either swamped with marking or making exciting travel plans. I have a huge backlog of [...]

Attack on social scientist in the Human Terrain System in Afghanistan

Some sad news: Paula Lloyd, a social scientist on a Human Terrain Team in Afghanistan, was reportedly doused in gasoline and set on fire by a Taliban supporter.  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Lloyd was interviewing a man about gasoline prices when the man, who was carrying a container of gasoline,  doused her [...]