In the years since September 11, 2001, David Price has been at the forefront of public debates over the ethical and political issues raised by using anthropology for America’s terror wars. Weaponizing Anthropology details the rapid militarization of anthropology and incursions by the CIA and other intelligence agencies onto American university campuses. Price combines his expert knowledge of the history of anthropologists’ collaborations with military and intelligence agencies with an activist stance opposing current efforts to weaponize anthropology in global counterinsurgency campaigns.
With the rapid growth of American military operations relying on cultural knowledge as a strategic tool for conquest and control, disciplinary loyalties aligning anthropologists with the peoples they study are strained in new ways as military sponsors seek to transform research subjects into targets and collaborators. Weaponizing Anthropology critiques a new generation of counterinsurgency programs like Human Terrain Systems, and a broad range of new academic funding programs like the Minerva Consortium, the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program, and the Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence, that now bring the CIA and Pentagon onto university campuses. Weaponizing Anthropology a concise and profound critique of the rapid transformation of American social science into an appendage of the National Security State.
David H. Price is a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Society and Social Justice at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington.