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Selling our independence? The perils of Pentagon funding for anthropology
Author(s) -
Lutz Catherine
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2008.00608.x
Subject(s) - pentagon , ideology , framing (construction) , terrorism , political science , sociology , independence (probability theory) , islam , law , public administration , political economy , politics , history , archaeology , statistics , mathematics
The Pentagon has launched the Minerva Initiative, a $50 million effort to direct social science research toward national security goals, including particular questions about the Chinese military, ideological trends in Islam, and terrorist organizations. While a small fraction of the Department of Defense's $85 billion R & D budget, this Initiative makes the Pentagon one of the largest potential funders of anthropological research. This editorial argues that such research should not be conducted, as it threatens to militarize our discipline. Given their ideological framing and the imperial mission in which they are embedded, the research questions will exacerbate rather than ameliorate global insecurity.