SfAA issues statement on HTS

I saw this on the AAA blog:

"The board of the SFAA expresses grave concerns about the potential harmful use of social science knowledge and skills in the HTS project. The SFAA believes that social scientists can be helpful to the military by offering training, analysis, and evaluation so long as these activities are compatible with this organization's code of ethics."

There was a link to the main SfAA page, but I did not see this text anywhere other than the AAA blog.

Here is a link to the SfAA code of ethics: http://www.sfaa.net/sfaaethic.html

Here are the parts of the code relevant to HTS:

1. To the peoples we study we owe disclosure of our research goals, methods, and sponsorship. The participation of people in our research activities shall only be on a voluntary basis. We shall provide a means through our research activities and in subsequent publications to maintain the confidentiality of those we study. The people we study must be made aware of the likely limits of confidentiality and must not be promised a greater degree of confidentiality than can be realistically expected under current legal circumstances in our respective nations. We shall, within the limits of our knowledge, disclose any significant risks to those we study that may result from our activities.

2. To the communities ultimately affected by our activities we owe respect for their dignity, integrity, and worth. We recognize that human survival is contingent upon the continued existence of a diversity of human communities, and guide our professional activities accordingly. We will avoid taking or recommending action on behalf of a sponsor which is harmful to the interests of the community.

...

6. To society as a whole we owe the benefit of our special knowledge and skills in interpreting sociocultural systems. We should communicate our understanding of human life to the society at large.

So the SfAA is saying that there is reason to be concerned but the involvement of anthropologists with the HTS but social science involvement with the military is fine as long as they maintain confidentiality and informed consent and they do not take or recommend action that is harmful to research participants or communities. I've never read anything from the HTS that contradicts these objectives. Certainly there is going to be potential for harm given the involvement of HTS in a war zone, but that at least has nothing to do with the HTS's stated objectives.

The SfAA statement is much more restrained than the one that the AAA Executive Board put out last fall. However, once again, it looks like the AAA (at least based on how they characterize their position in this post) is pretending that they did not make such a strong statement.

Here is what they say now about HTS:

The AAA has also expressed concern about the potential ethical implications of HTS, and our Executive Board, Committee on Ethics, and Ad Hoc Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with US Security and Intelligence Communities continue to discuss this issue in great detail.

Yes, these statements are true, but what about this?

In light of these points, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association concludes (i) that the HTS program creates conditions which are likely to place anthropologists in positions in which their work will be in violation of the AAA Code of Ethics and (ii) that its use of anthropologists poses a danger to both other anthropologists and persons other anthropologists study.

Thus the Executive Board expresses its disapproval of the HTS program.

In the context of a war that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles, the Executive Board sees the HTS project as a problematic application of anthropological expertise, most specifically on ethical grounds. We have grave concerns about the involvement of anthropological knowledge and skill in the HTS project. The Executive Board views the HTS project as an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise.

That is not ambiguous to me. This statement does not count as expressing concern nor does it count as encouraging continuing discussion. They passed a definitive judgment. This would have been the perfect opportunity to contrast this judgment with the SfAA's statement that raised concerns but did not pass judgment. However, they are trying to pretend that they have a similar view as the SfAA.

I'm really curious. Why is the AAA trying to pretend that its Executive Board did not make such a strong, definitive statement of disapproval of the HTS? Is it intentional?

More HTT discussion in the news, congress, AAA...

There has been more HTT discussion out there. First, Newsweek published a mostly critical assessment of the HTT.


Montgomery McFate responded to Newsweek with a letter to the editor. It is published in full in a Wired blog. McFate points out some factual errors in the Newsweek piece.

The most important issue addressed by McFate regarding the repudiation of the HTS by the AAA is the fact that, counter to what has been discussed in the public record, many of the participants in the HTS are not in fact anthropologists. Anyone associated with the HTS would have known that but McFate's letter is the first time I had seen that in print.

Shortly after these articles were published, the AAA sent its own letter to Newsweek and said some interesting things, including a repetition of McFate's point about the disciplinary composition of HTS:

I would also like to bring to the attention of your readership that while the authors of the story seem to suggest that the HTS program is primarily made up of anthropologists, the program, in fact, employs many individuals from the social science community; anthropologists represent a small percentage of the total of those employed. Moreover, ethical considerations associated with the program definitely apply to the entire social science community at large, and these issues will have to be examined on an ongoing basis for years to come.

This is the first time I have seen anything from the AAA aknowledging that the HTS is mostly non-Anthropologists. I wonder if this changes the persepctive of those who were against it.

I found the passage below interesting. It seems like the AAA is trying to say that, yes the AAA Executive board came out with a statement that said that HTS is wrong, but really we are not that dismissive, we're trying to approach this with an open mind, we have done our homework, so please don't forget about us:

AAA believes that while the article accurately reports the position of its Executive Board regarding the potential ethical implications anthropologists participating in the U.S Military’s Human Terrain Systems program (HTS) may encounter, it is critical to convey to Newsweek and its audience that the association continues to take a proactive approach to examine the full spectrum of issues associated therein, as the intersection of the professional ethics of the association vis-à-vis the work of practicing anthropologists in the military raises broader and fundamental considerations of the limits and possibilities for social scientific practice than that represented by HTS-type scenarios.”.

On October 31, 2007, the AAA Executive Board issued a statement regarding the U.S. Military Human Terrain System program which stated, in part, that:

In the context of a war that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles, the Executive Board sees the HTS project as a problematic application of anthropological expertise, most specifically on ethical grounds.

However, as the Executive Board issued this statement, a special AAA workgroup entitled the Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities had already been working for a year on a report examining in detail the bigger picture of the varied roles that practitioners and scholars of anthropology are currently invited to assume within military, intelligence and national security entities, including the state of AAA’s existing guidelines and guidance on the involvement of anthropologists in intelligence/national security-related activities as well as the key ethical, methodological, and disciplinary challenges faced by the AAA in its current and future engagements with these communities. This report was released in late November of 2007, and in its examination of ethical considerations for anthropologists, concluded:

The Commission recognizes both opportunities and risk to those anthropologists choosing to engage with the work of the military, security and intelligence arenas. We do not recommend non-engagement, but instead emphasize differences in kinds of engagement and accompanying ethical considerations.

Maybe I am reading too much into that but it sure seems like this letter is an effort to distance the AAA from the Executive board's statement about the HTS. It looks like they want to be a relevant voice in the development of these types of programs. If so, then...it think it is too little and too late. I think that they made the specific HTS statement to mollify the vocal activists in the association and completely distracted everyone from the work of the ad hoc task force that involved months of work and produced a carefully crafted report that looked at the issues from more than one perspective. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk emotional statement of condemnation is the one that people are going to remember.

EDIT: I forgot to add a link to the latest AAA Blog post about HTS discussion in The Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.

The Journal of Quantitative Anthropology

The defunct Journal of Quantitative Anthropology is on-line and open access. Check it out. There are some great articles contained in those 6 volumes.

I just found an article on using multilevel modeling to analyze personal network data.

I wish this journal was still around in some form. It seems like much of the work I do would easily fit into that journal but has trouble fitting into other venues. Field Methods is the best alternative out there.