Roberto J. González must think that anthropology is worthless.

That is the only conclusion I can come to after listening to his interview on the radio program Here & Now from July 28, 2008:

Social Scientists in War Zones

How well is the US military's plan going to embed anthropologists with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Two social scientists have lost their lives since the first "Human Terrain Teams" were sent out last year. We speak with Tom Garcia, a former member of the Air Force who's training teams at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. He was good friends with Michael Bhatia, an anthropologist who was killed in May in Afghanistan. We also speak with a critic of the program, Roberto Gonzalez, Associate Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University in California.

I made the following transcript of a portion of the show:

Q: We turn now to Roberto Gonzalez, who is an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University in California. He is a founding member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, an ad-hoc group created to promote “ethical anthropology.” He’s also the author of a forthcoming book on Human Terrain Systems. Roberto, Professor, uh you heard our interview with Tom Garcia, an impassioned defender, who trains these teams, knew Michael Bhatia, who argued these teams saved lives.

RG: Well, let me just first of all comment on Michael Bhatia. His tragic death is something that I think any social scientist who found out about this just is devastated by. He unfortunately has not been the first human terrain team casualty. In fact there was another social scientist by the name of Nicole Suveges she was killed just about a month ago. She was killed in Sadr City Bhagdad. The fact is that the vast majority of these human terrain teams are operating in Iraq. I believe there are a total of 26 and 25 out of those 26 are based in Iraq.

Q: And what are you saying…should they be there in your point of view…Is the fact that they are getting killed the problem of the program or is it the price to pay for some would say saving…they’re helping to save lives?

RG: I think that the loss of life of social scientists just one part of a much bigger problem from my understanding of history, my reading of history. My concerns, I’ve really got two sets of concerns about the Human Terrain Programs. The first are broad concerns I have as a tax payer. I’ve spoken with several former employees of the human terrain system, some of whom have contacted me out of concerns they have from having participated in the program. Its’ been described to me in some cases as a boondoggle that is benefiting very few others other than BAE Systems, which is the UK based contractor that’s been awarded the Human Terrain contract. And what they described to me is severe gross mismanagement of the program on a number of different levels. You alluded to one earlier in terms of the lack of qualifications of many of the social scientists. Now I think Michael Bhatia is clearly an exception to that based on what I know about his research and his cultural familiarity with Afghanistan. But the first group, the first cohort of the human terrain teams were deployed last year and the anthropologists that were sent to Afghanistan and Iraq -- you had one who was an expert in Philippine hunting and gathering groups, another an expert in Latin American Archaeology. Neither of these men had any experience prior to their service on these teams in Afghanistan or Iraq or the Middle East…

Q: But do they…as, you know just because, in the field, just because they are anthropologists or social scientists don’t they have a better way of reading people than perhaps, you know, a troop member who has been trained to look for explosive devices and maybe doesn’t have a sense of how to read a different culture. . Don’t these people have a way of doing that that, that can be helpful

RG: I’m really not convinced that they do, to be honest. And I say this out of my two years of experience in an indigenous Indian village in southern Mexico. After two years I only started to scratch the surface of the kinship networks and the economic system and the political system there.

Q: Well, as you say you have a forthcoming book on Human Terrain Systems…(snip)

I have several problems with what was discussed here.

First, just to re-emphasize the bolded parts above, Roberto J. González said that a person who earns a PhD in Anthropology is no better in understanding human beings than an Army troop member who has not been trained at all except for how to look for explosive devices. Second, he said that it took him two years before he “started to scratch the surface” of kinship, economics, political systems of a village in southern Mexico. I can’t imagine a more extreme way to say that he barely learned anything than to say that he only started to scratch the surface.

What he is saying is intentionally extreme. According to Gonzalez, anthropologist who focus on one particular village and spend two years there (González apparently spent two years doing participant observation by working in fields with other laborers in Oaxaca, Mexico, according to the book he wrote about his dissertation research) knows next to nothing about what is going on there. And that same anthropologist knows no more than any other untrained person about human beings once the anthropologist leaves that field site.

This leads me to a very important question: What is the point of studying anthropology and doing anthropological research based on this interpretation of the usefulness of anthropology in novel contexts? How many years would it take before an anthropological fieldworker would know more than enough to just start to scratch the surface? 10? 20? How long before you really understood it? 60? 70? It seems like you’d need to actually be born there and grow up there and spend your whole life there to really understand it. Then you would not be an anthropologist doing field work, you would be a native. And if the experience of learning about one group of people had absolutely no value to understanding other people, then you are left with the question: what is the point of bothering to learn about other people? It sounds like you are out of luck if someone who has never even tried to learn anything about other cultures knows just as much as a PhD in anthropology.

I’m sure this is news to those who wrote the description of the anthropology major and masters degree in applied anthropology at San Jose State University:

A Behavioral Science major allows students to develop an inter-disciplinary perspective on human behavior. This major may be paired with one of three additional majors to enhance their understanding. These majors are especially appropriate for students preparing to work in jobs which require extensive understanding of human behavior, such as social work, human resource management, counseling, teaching, etc. Students may focus their studies on anthropology, psychology, or sociology by pursuing the appropriate double major....

(About the Masters in Applied Anthropology) This program produces skilled practitioners at the MA level who can move into positions in the public and private sectors as researchers, administrators and program developers. They do so by applying anthropological knowledge and skills to regional problems and issues. The core of the program is built around skill “clusters” and content “tracks”. The program is built around three broad clusters of research skills that can be used within the different content tracks. The first cluster consists of basic and advanced ethnographic methods for understanding how social systems, including organizations and communities, function in the regional environment. The second concerns assessment and evaluation skills, especially those based on qualitative methods that complement the familiar quantitative methods. The third skill cluster consists of skills in applying anthropology to the planning and design of programs and organizations, services and artifacts.

Content tracks are the substantive areas in which students will apply the skills they are learning. Tracks will be adjusted based on student demand, community needs, faculty expertise, and job opportunities. They are linked to partners in the university and the region whose interests, expertise and resources are complementary. The content tracks are:

(1) health care,
(2) business and industry,
(3) immigration and immigrant services, and
(4) regional sustainability.

That sounds like they might expect you to learn something that you can apply to situations other than one particular group. Maybe Professor González doesn’t agree with this program description. Perhaps he just works there, collects a paycheck, and writes books about the Human Terrain System. I am wondering when he is going to start doing his 2+ years of fieldwork with the HTS so that he can write that book. Has he signed up to do some participant observation yet? Maybe he is going to write that book based on contacts he gets from various former HTS members. Hmmmm…as a California tax payer, I don’t think I like that. That sounds like a boondoggle.

But I digress. Another issue I have is his focus on the recruitment by BAE. I am more than happy to see a critique of military contracting. I think the lack of oversight of military contracting might be the biggest reason things are so screwed up in Iraq. There have been billions of dollars wasted on contractors like BAE and I’m all for holding them accountable. However, is that really his main concern? Recruitment? That is odd considering that he is a founding member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists which is primarily occupied with the discouragement of anthropologists from being hired to work on projects like the Human Terrain System through getting others to sign a pledge:

We, the undersigned, believe that anthropologists should not engage in research and other activities that contribute to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq or in related theaters in the “war on terror.” Furthermore, we believe that anthropologists should refrain from directly assisting the US military in combat, be it through torture, interrogation, or tactical advice.

US military and intelligence agencies and military contractors have identified “cultural knowledge,” “ethnographic intelligence,” and “human terrain mapping” as essential to US-led military intervention in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. Consequently, these agencies have mounted a drive to recruit professional anthropologists as employees and consultants. While often presented by its proponents as work that builds a more secure world, protects US soldiers on the battlefield, or promotes cross-cultural understanding, at base it contributes instead to a brutal war of occupation which has entailed massive casualties. By so doing, such work breaches relations of openness and trust with the people anthropologists work with around the world and, directly or indirectly, enables the occupation of one country by another. In addition, much of this work is covert. Anthropological support for such an enterprise is at odds with the humane ideals of our discipline as well as professional standards.

We are not all necessarily opposed to other forms of anthropological consulting for the state, or for the military, especially when such cooperation contributes to generally accepted humanitarian objectives. A variety of views exist among us, and the ethical issues are complex. Some feel that anthropologists can effectively brief diplomats or work with peacekeeping forces without compromising professional values. However, work that is covert, work that breaches relations of openness and trust with studied populations, and work that enables the occupation of one country by another violates professional standards.

Consequently, we pledge not to undertake research or other activities in support of counter-insurgency work in Iraq or in related theaters in the “war on terror,” and we appeal to colleagues everywhere to make the same commitment.

It sounds like, from the above text, that even if the program was as successful and efficient as possible they would still have problems with it because anthropologists should not be engaging in this type of activity. So why bring it up? It is a red herring. It is a distraction from the argument behind the pledge.

Regarding my interpretation of his answer to the question in the interview...There are various things to consider that may change the interpretation that González thinks anthropology is worthless. First, maybe González is just a really bad anthropologist and it takes him longer to come to basic understandings about other human beings. However, if he does not realize this, then the conclusion is the same: he must think anthropology is worthless. He just doesn’t realize that learning about things like kinship is a very common process that anthropologists have been going through for decades and maybe he doesn’t know anything about methods that take less than 2 years to use. Maybe he was just using very inappropriate methods. However, that means he doesn't know this so he still thinks that anthropology is worthless based on his experience.

If he does realize that he is a bad anthropologist or if he really did learn more than enough to start to scratch the surface, and if he really does think that training in anthropology would help someone to know something about other human beings more than someone without any training, then there is one other interpretation: he is lying. He might really begrudgingly think that someone who knows something about culture might be useful in a dangerous situation where people with guns have no idea why the local people are doing what they are doing. If this is so, then another logical conclusion is that he’d rather discourage people who know something about culture from working to prevent violence in which innocent people might be killed from misunderstandings than to admit this in an interview because it would hurt his furthering of some goal (book sales?). This is certainly another interpretation. I am not ready to come to this conclusion because I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt. He probably just thinks that anthropology is worthless. I can’t really think of a third possible interpretation.