VIRTUAL WAR AND MAGICAL DEATH

Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing

By NEIL L. WHITEHEAD, SVERKER FINNSTRM

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2013 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-5435-2

Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………ixIntroduction: Virtual War and Magical Death NEIL L. WHITEHEAD AND SVERKER
FINNSTRÖM…………………………………………………………11. Ethnography, Knowledge, Torture, and Silence NEIL L. WHITEHEAD………262. The Role of Culture in Wars Waged by Robots: Connecting Drones,
Anthropology, and Human Terrain System’s Prehistory DAVID PRICE………..463. Cybernetic Crystal Ball: “Forecasting” Insurgency in Iraq and
Afghanistan ROBERTO J. GONZÁLEZ…………………………………….654. Full Spectrum: The Military Invasion of Anthropology R. BRIAN
FERGUSON………………………………………………………….855. Today He Is No More: Magic, Intervention, and Global War in Uganda
SVERKER FINNSTRÖM………………………………………………….1116. The Hostile Gaze: Night Vision and the Immediation of Nocturnal Combat
in Vietnam and Iraq ANTONIUS C. G. M. ROBBEN…………………………1327. Virtual Soldiers, Cognitive Laborers ROBERTSON ALLEN……………….1528. Virtual War in the Tribal Zone: Air Strikes, Drones, Civilian
Casualties, and Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan and Pakistan
JEFFREY A. SLUKA…………………………………………………..1719. Propaganda, Gangs, and Social Cleansing in Guatemala VICTORIA SANFORD..19410. The Soundtrack to War MATTHEW SUMERA…………………………….21411. War at Large: Miner Magic and the Carrion System KOEN STROEKEN……..234References………………………………………………………..251Contributors………………………………………………………279Index…………………………………………………………….281

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

NEIL L. WHITEHEAD

ETHNOGRAPHY, KNOWLEDGE,TORTURE, AND SILENCE

The “Ethnographer’s Magic” was the phrase used as a title byGeorge Stocking (1992) for a collection of essays that principallyexamined the work and influence of Franz Boas and BronislawMalinowski and anthropology’s powerfully mythic qualities andpersistent romanticism, established precisely through the “incorporativeritual” and often obscure occult procedures of “fieldwork”(1992:13). The “magic” of the ethnographer then, as Stockingshows (1992:12–59), refers both to the way the experienceof fieldwork cannot be readily taught as a methodology and tothe way penetrating the culturally mysterious and occult is theguiding ambition of ethnographic activity. This founding myth ofanthropology has certainly become part of the popular culturalunderstanding of what fieldworkers do, and this volume has anumber of essays precisely examining how the military seeks tooperationalize that “magic” and use it to better understand thehuman terrain and cultural landscapes of those it would kill.

This chapter questions the basis of that “ethnographic magic,”unveiling the occult mysteries of “fieldwork” as rooted in a fardeeper and more troubling cultural tradition than that discussedby Stocking. It examines how the epistemological basis of ethnographicfieldwork is starkly revealed through its recruitment torecent military programs. In turn, this prompts questions as tohow ethnography, as part of social science, is rooted in a Westernview of truth and inquiry that is culturally validated through agonisticprocesses. For this reason, the convergence between ethnographyand torture is also explored, which entails a critical examination of themethodology of narration and translation in fieldwork itself, a better acknowledgmentof the persistent colonial role played by anthropologythrough its unsilencing of others, and a reevaluation of the resulting ethicalimperatives of the ethnographer’s own subject position.

The “weaponization” of culture discussed in this volume and the waysethnographers engage with both sorcery and the burgeoning space of “virtualwar” necessarily provoke new questions as to the place of observationand participation in ethnographic practice. Equally, a pressing need is toexamine aspects of this relationship as part of the historical emergenceof anthropology as a distinct academic discipline and to set that processwithin the broader context of post-Enlightenment ideas of scientific epistemology.In particular, and because this a potentially vast and unwieldytopic, the focus here is on the nature of ethnographic practice.

The suggestion will be that certain ways of conceiving ethnography,specifically that of ethnography as an objective or neutral mode of “datacollection,” represent an epistemological tradition that needs closer criticalexamination. Certainly, since its professional inception in the twentiethcentury, the colonial legacies of anthropology have been periodicallydiscussed before by ethnographers. In such discussions (Asad 1973; Boas1928; Bremen 1998; Dowie 2009; Fabian 1983; Herskovits 1938; Wolf 1982)varying degrees of unease as to the uses of anthropological knowledge anddata have been raised by many other anthropologists. Indeed, the “literaryturn” of the 1990s provoked by the analysis of such authors as GeorgeMarcus and Michael Fischer (1986) arguably led to a thorough reexaminationof the purposes and forms of ethnographic writing. So why returnto this topic now if it has already been repeatedly rehearsed within anthropology?First because the anthropological practice is engaged not justin the production of scholarly monographs but also in the production ofmore circumscribed and policy-driven forms of cultural knowledge in theform of “applied anthropology.” However, as Melville Herskovits wrote ofapplied anthropology in 1938: “The uncritical tendency to see native cultureseverywhere forced out of existence by the overwhelming drive ofEuropean techniques; the feeling that these ‘simpler’ folk must inevitablyaccept the sanctions of their more efficient rulers as they do some of theoutward modes of Life of those under whose control they live; all thesereflect a type of ethnocentrism that should be absent from the scientificstudies of an anthropologist” (1938:32).

Second, this issue needs revisiting because Herskovits’s critique of appliedanthropology remains very relevant, given the continuing expansionof such forms of ethnographic practice stimulated in large part bygovernmental and nongovernmental organization (NGO) enthusiasm for”empowering the local” as an appropriately liberal and humane developmentstrategy. Our ethnocentric values are still reflected in the continuingpolicies and practices not only of well-intentioned development agenciesbut also in military counterinsurgency programs that overtly seek to”weaponize culture” (González 2007).

In short, layered over the perennial issues of the ethical basis of ethnographicresearch as part of a still persistent colonial epistemology are thehighly topical issues of the ethics of deploying anthropological methodsin support of military programs of “civil reconstruction,” as in Iraqand Afghanistan, as well as similar nonmilitary programs connected tohealth and human rights concerns globally. In light of recent work by, forexample, Roberto González (2009) and David Price (2008a)—who verythoroughly document a wide range of involvement by anthropologists inmilitary and counterintelligence programs throughout the twentieth centuryup to the present day—these issues and concerns need constant reevaluation.

However, rather than question the ethics of those who do or do not cooperatewith such programs, the purpose of this chapter is to ask how andwhy certain forms of knowledge are inherently connected to the exerciseof power and to suggest how ethnography is no exception to that. Withoutappreciating, and constantly revisiting, how ethnographic inquiry canalso function as a form of domination over others, we risk an unwittingcooptation into research programs that may have little benefit for theirsubjects. For this reason, the subject position of the ethnographer, no lessthan the stated purposes of research and data collection, are central to rethinkinganthropology’s colonial legacies and developing ethical practicesthat are relevant to current events.

In the field of applied anthropology, many practitioners are seekingto come to terms with the potentially neocolonial nature of economicaid, social development, human rights, or medical intervention, even inthe absence of an overt military component to such “foreign aid.” Allof these programs are usually perceived as having those “benefits” thatgo along with liberal capitalist economics and political culture, such aspersonal freedom, economic autonomy, and gender rights. Nonetheless,powerful aid agencies, such as the United Nations, clearly view someforms of cultural tradition as harmful and in need of eradication (Winter,Thompson, and Jeffreys 2002). The presence of “traditional harmfulpractices” as they are called within the United Nations bureaucracy, thusillustrates the continuing urge, as noted by Herskovits (quoted above)to use the opportunity of close ethnographic understanding to promotevalues and behaviors more in accord with our notions of humane andcivilized values. For example, the Associated Press reported on August 1,2009, that an ancient Muslim ritual, practiced in New Delhi, of droppingbabies from a mosque roof into a bed sheet to ensure health andprosperity, was the target of “outrage” on the part of child rights activists.Perhaps that is understandable in the light of our own values as to”childhood,” but at the same time, as Karen Valentin and Lotte Meinert(2009) argue: “The civilization of the children of the ‘savages’ in thecolonial world was seen as a crucial issue from early on and was an inherentpart of the colonization project in Africa, America and Oceaniain the 19th century. The idea of civilizing ‘the savages,’ today’s South,through children has continued in the post-colonial era with the developmentof mass-schooling systems and various child-focused developmentprojects.” As a result, anthropology always risks being unthinkinglycoopted into such processes, and recent works call for the need toagain reevaluate the complex relationship between cultural knowledgeand cultural domination (Bricmont 2006; Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson2001; Sanford and Angel-Anjana 2006). In such contexts ethnographyis central to the cultural and political interface with other cultures anda key reason that the results of anthropological fieldwork are often verywelcome to other disciplines, as well as nonacademic agencies, all tooaware of their lack of cross-cultural perspective. Although lawyers, politicians,and economists may not spend much time reading ethnography,the influence of anthropology is forcefully, if diffusely, present throughthe way in which its ideas and representations feed into broader culturalattitudes toward non-Western peoples or those who are internally marginalto Western civil society.

By providing intimate knowledge of other cultures, anthropologymakes plausible the possibility that the members of those cultures can beinfluenced, reformed, developed, or converted into appropriately obedientneoliberal subjects. Although, as with racism, “culturalism” (an insistenceon the ontological and experiential autonomy of differing culturalworlds) avoids reifying cultural difference, this paradoxically makesit more difficult to perceive those cultures as historically and dynamicallychanging systems. Instead, a “culture” appears as an aggregation of universalizedhuman subjects ready to interact with other such individualsthrough the medium of a particular and individualized, rather thana collective and intertwined, cultural heritage. Embracing Western liberalmodernity then becomes a mere matter of free choice. So cross-disciplinaryor extra-academic collaborations may entail untheorizedrisks and drawbacks just as ethical dilemmas quickly emerge from fieldwork.This is particularly true as performed under the current politicalconditions of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in many ways no less sothan with other forms of “engaged” anthropological work, such as withNGOS, study abroad programs, or international aid agencies.

An urgent and important context in which these issues currently cometogether for anthropologists are the continuing efforts by military andsecurity agencies to recruit anthropologists to assist as “cultural specialists”in the war on terror and even combat field operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.Although there was a change in administration in 2009, therehas not been the hoped-for end to these wars. In any case, the fundamentalethical and epistemological issues provoked by deploying ethnographyas a military strategy are, as I hope to make clear, perennial and inevitable;they will remain so unless we more adequately theorize the historical anddisciplinary legacies within which anthropology arose and from which ithas yet to detach itself.

ETHNOGRAPHY, TORTURE, AND EPISTEMOLOGIES OF CONQUEST

Among the many questions provoked by the way ethnography’s potentialfor “weaponization” is revealed in security and military overtures to thediscipline is the need for a critical examination of the practice of ethnographyby anthropologists in other contexts of collaboration with governmentagencies. The refusal of marginal populations to become legible tothe state or its institutions of government is globally evident in the wayssuch agencies may be resisted at a local level. This resistance is made apparentthrough the way in which popular support is often given to thosebranded as criminal, rebel, or insurgent (Hobsbawm 2000); through theglobal phenomenon of the physical retreat and avoidance of governmentby indigenous peoples (Bodley 2008); or even through the mundane practicesof daily life (Nash 1993; Scott 1985). Social conformity is calculated,not unthinking, and beneath the surface of symbolic and ritual compliancethere is often an undercurrent of resistance or effacement of actualintentions. In such circumstances, deploying ethnographic informationfor purposes of colonial occupation or the enforcement of state powerneed not be a self-conscious or politically overt aspect of state agency becauseways of knowing, as much as the knowledge they produce, are culturallyshared among the agents of state power. The professionalizationof anthropology in the early twentieth century therefore detached ethnographicinformation gathering from this kind of governmental projectand reinvented it as a systematic and scientific technique. The unsystematizedknowledge and interpretation of the agents of the government apparatuswas downgraded by a newly scientific anthropology to the status oftravelogue or memoir or as simply lacking credible insight.

Certainly these were valid criticisms, but the genealogy of ethnographicknowledge is relevant for consideration here, as well as the way the newly”scientific” voice of ethnography might be reattached, recruited, to thepurposes of government, as in the case of the Human Terrain System(HTS) program (see also Ferguson, González, Price, in this volume) orother of the current projects for using social science knowledge, such asthe Minerva Initiative (Glenn 2008). Whether or not anthropology hascritically engaged this legacy to a sufficient degree is therefore tested inconsidering the difficult and perhaps unwelcome questions as to why wepursue the knowledge goals we do, the nature of the methods we use tofulfill those goals, and whether those goals are the appropriate ones for apostcolonial anthropology that is not to become unwittingly entailed inthe projection and inscription of state power (Gordon 2007; Smith 1999).An unwitting or undesired cooptation of existing ethnographic researchdata into military planning or as a backdrop to interrogation is thereforean alarming prospect for most anthropologists, but is also a reflection ofthe epistemological character of ethnography itself.

Certainly the prevalent professional assumption would be that theprogressive, advocacy, or human justice goals of most ethnographic representationwould insulate and inoculate ethnography against being usedin this way. Of course not all ethnography is informed by the same values,but the extent to which an ethnography has this rhetorical character doesnot obviate the epistemological origins and topics of the anthropologicalresearch agenda that historically inform our practice.

My own ethnographic work in Guyana has dealt with violence and killingmotivated by long-standing cultural beliefs (Whitehead 2002), so Idiscuss aspects of that research here precisely because it bears directly onissues as to how anthropology might react to “traditional harmful practices.”

Moreover, as I came to write about my period of fieldwork andethnography on this subject (which took place during the 1990s), I becamemore and more uneasy as to the cost that informants were payingin terms of the dangers they invited by speaking to me about killingand those who were the likely perpetrators, as well as the painful natureof memories and their recall, which surrounded my questioning aboutthe details of specific killings and how victims and their families had feltabout kanaimà.

The term kanaimà refers to a particular mode of assault sorcery thatinvolves ritual mutilation and killing of its victims. The word also canallude to a more diffuse idea of active spiritual malignancy that possessesthe assassins and has existed from the beginning of time. Thus, kanaimàas an ethnographic issue is complex to research, both ethically and intellectually,because it is a discourse that operates at a number of levels, referringsimultaneously to the dynamics of the spirit world, physical aggressionby individuals, the tensions and jealousies between villagers andfamily members, and the suspicions of more distant enemies, as well asoutsiders. Because Patamuna people are well aware of many features ofthe global order, such outsiders are not thought of simply as being missionaries,anthropologists, or Guyanese government functionaries butalso representatives of global Ngos, such as Survival International, as wellas the shadowy possibility of foreign police or military agents from Brazil,Venezuela, or the United States. For these reasons, kanaimà sorceryis able to engage with any and all of these discursive levels and their differingontological appearances. The Ngo worker, the Central IntelligenceAgency (Cia) operative, or the revenant spirit of a long-dead warrior thusmingle and shape-shift in the practices of magical engagement displayedby kanaimàs (Whitehead 2002:174–201). Consequently one is simultaneouslydealing with convincing case histories, wild rumors, consideredattributions of blame, false accusations, ungrounded gossip, and justifiedsuspicion. Certainly “rumor” and “gossip” are critical social vectors forthe construction of violence and its meanings, but to the extent that myown questioning and interrogation of subjects was itself stimulating thecirculation of rumors and the invention of new gossip, I was, unwittinglyat the time, deeply implicated in the very phenomenon I was supposedto study with scientific detachment. Such detachment in these circumstancescould at best be an indifference to the painful consequences ofmy desire to know more and to transmit that understanding to a wideraudience.
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