{"id":6509,"date":"2009-02-10T10:07:02","date_gmt":"2009-02-10T15:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=6509"},"modified":"2009-02-10T10:37:15","modified_gmt":"2009-02-10T15:37:15","slug":"elizabeth-redden-interviews-roberto-j-gonzalez-american-counterinsurgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=6509","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Redden interviews Roberto J. Gonz\u00e1lez: &#8216;American Counterinsurgency&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Elizabeth Redden, <em>Inside Higher Ed<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/insidehighered.com\/news\/2009\/01\/29\/humanterrain\">29 January 2009<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/humanterrainsystem.army.mil\/default.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Human Terrain System<\/a>, a program which embeds social scientists with brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, is billed as a mechanism for improving the U.S. military\u2019s knowledge of culture and local populations \u2014 heretofore perceived as sorely lacking. \u201cIt\u2019s a chance to change the military; it\u2019s a chance to change the Army,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2008\/11\/24\/anthro\" target=\"_blank\">one HTS member said at the American Anthropological Association\u2019s annual meeting<\/a> in November. The HTS <a href=\"http:\/\/humanterrainsystem.army.mil\/faqs.html\" target=\"_blank\">Web site<\/a> states that the program \u201cdoes not collect intelligence or have a role in targeting.\u201d However, AAA\u2019s executive board <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aaanet.org\/about\/Policies\/statements\/Human-Terrain-System-Statement.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">has formally opposed the program<\/a>, citing a number of ethical issues including the potential misuse of anthropological information for targeting purposes \u2014 which would violate the bedrock principle that those studied should not be harmed.<\/p>\n<p>One of the leading critics of HTS has been Roberto J. Gonz\u00e1lez, an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University. In <em>American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain<\/em>, forthcoming February 1 from Prickly Paradigm Press, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/presssite\/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&amp;bookkey=405861\" target=\"_blank\">distributed by University of Chicago Press<\/a>, Gonz\u00e1lez strongly critiques the human terrain concept in its historical and contemporary contexts. He answered some questions for <em>Inside Higher Ed<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[<a href=\"http:\/\/insidehighered.com\/news\/2009\/01\/29\/humanterrain\">Read the interview<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, 29 January 2009 The Human Terrain System, a program which embeds social scientists with brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, is billed as a mechanism for improving the U.S. military\u2019s knowledge of culture and local populations &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=6509\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-1GZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6509"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6529,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6509\/revisions\/6529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}