Anthropology and ethics in America’s
declining imperial age
Carolyn
Fluehr‑Lobban
Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban is
Professor of Anthropology
at Rhode Island College,
and editor of Ethics and the
profession of anthropology,:
Dialogue for ethically
conscious practice (Rowman
Altamira, 2003). She is
currently conducting research
in Sudan, under the auspices
of the US Institute of Peace,
on the withdrawal of Shari’a
following peace accords
ending 22 years of civil war
between the north and south.
Her email is:
cfluehr@ric.edu.
The Commission on
Engagement of Anthropology
with the US Security and
Intelligence Communities
advises the AAA Executive
Board and the Association by:
(1) providing information and/
or recommendations on the
varied roles that practitioners
and scholars of anthropology
currently assume within
intelligence and national
security entities; (2) providing
guidance on the state of AAA’s
existing guidelines and on the
involvement of anthropologists
in intelligence/national
security-related activities;
(3) examining the key ethical,
methodological, and practical/
political challenges faced
by the discipline and the
AAA in its current and future
engagement in intelligence/
national security.
The conclusions of Phase
I of the Commission’s work
are available in AAA 2007. In
phase II, more balance was
sought between academic
and applied practitioners,
including people working
both inside and outside of
the military/security/intel
environments. It has been
augmented by four, bringing
its total membership to twelve.
Its disciplinary representation
has been broadened
vis-à-vis anthropology,
with the additions of an
archaeologist and a biological
anthropologist. And further
participation was sought from
people who are not advocates
per se of such work, including
an additional member from
the Network of Concerned
Anthropologists (for details
see aaanet.org/cmtes/
commissions/CEAUSSIC/
index.cfm).
18 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 24 No 4, August 2008
This article is offered by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban as
a window on some of the issues being discussed on the
American Anthropological Association’s Commission on
Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made US imperi-
alism evident to a global mass audience as never before.
The global ‘war on terror’ is projected to endure for dec-
ades. Military and political failures in these wars have led
to a recruitment of anthropologists, whose methods, data
and analysis are again found to be of value in wartime
engagement with numerous intelligence, defence and
national security entities. This has stimulated debate in the
pages of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY and elsewhere. Direct
invitations to anthropologists to engage in intelligence
work (as in the CIA advertisement on the AAA jobs web-
site in autumn 2005) led to the creation in 2006 of the AAA
Commission on Engagement of Anthropology with the US
Security and Intelligence Communities. The Commission
released its Final Report in November 2007.
The Commission neither opposed nor encouraged
engagement, but laid out an initial framework of the issues
for discussion, debate and decision-making. The work of
the Commission has now been extended for another two
years, until 2010; I have served on it since its inception. In
October 2007, a resolution of the AAA Executive Board
approved a statement opposing anthropologists’ engage-
ment with Human Terrain Systems (HTS) as unethical.
Many signed a ‘Pledge of Non-participation in Counter-
insurgency’, circulated by the newly organized Network
of Concerned Anthropologists, at the 2007 AAA annual
meeting.1
The present moment is full of ethical dilemmas for
anthropologists. Clearly the history of counter-­insurgency
research in which involvement of anthropologists and allied
behavioural scientists has been sought (Project Camelot,
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq), and the responses of
the professional associations, have left a legacy of unre-
solved issues around secret research and government
employment with which we are still grappling. The Pat
Roberts International Studies Program (PRISP), through
which the Defense Department funds graduate educa-
tion in priority regions and languages linked to intel-
ligence work, reignited an old controversy about which
officials from international professional associations such
as the International Union of Anthropological Sciences
(IUAES), the European Association of Anthropologists
(EASA) and the Association of Social Anthropologists
(ASA) expressed their concern (Price 2005, Nas 2005,
Fardon 2005, Kürti 2005). In the wake of 9/11 and the
failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, debates about the engage-
ment of anthropology with military and intelligence agen-
cies provide an historic opportunity for dialogue about
ethical principles and praxis within anthropology and its
multiple applications.
Whether the US’s imperial age began when Native
American Indians were killed and their lands seized, or
when it participated in the international slave trade, colo-
nization of Caribbean islands and the Philippines, or when
it engaged in the two proxy wars of Korea and Vietnam,
it is clearly in deep crisis now. Previous works have
probed links between anthropology and colonialism (Asad
1973, 1993, Stocking 1993) and neocolonialism (Pels
Intelligence Communities, of which she is a member. Her
arguments are not intended to be authoritative but are pre-
sented here as an invitation to anthropologists throughout
the world for urgent debate. [Ed.]
and Salemink 1999), while recent writing has revealed
American anthropology’s Second World War ties to intel-
ligence, and argues that currently anthropology is being
‘leveraged’ as part of a ‘soft counterinsurgency’ in an
effort to manipulate or ameliorate political damage done
in Iraq and Afghanistan (Price 2008a, b). Ironically, just
when anthropologists thought they were ‘decolonizing’
their discipline, anthropology is being called to the aid of
an empire in crisis and decline.
An ethics discourse framed by history
Today’s professional ethics codes have their origins in the
Nuremburg trials, in which defeated Germany was forced
to come to terms with the Third Reich’s crimes against
humanity. Virtually every professional ethics code in the
biomedical and behavioural sciences descends from this
post-war era. The American Anthropological Association’s
first code was developed in 1971 in the context of the
Vietnam war. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the
cruelties of the war in Europe triggered an awareness of
the need to encourage good conduct in research involving
fellow humans – an awareness that had failed to be woken
either by the genocide of the American Indians or by the
four centuries of the Atlantic Slave trade.
In recent years, incidents such as the ‘Darkness in El
Dorado’ controversy have prompted calls for more nuanced
ethical guidance for anthropologists as practitioners. The
current context of American imperialism has brought to the
fore questions of what exactly the injunctions ‘do no harm’
and ‘informed consent’ mean for anthropologists. These
standards of practice are still not sufficiently discussed
in anthropology. Since the last major debate about the
involvement of American anthropology in wartime, around
the Vietnam war, a new generation of anthropologists has
emerged. They are applying anthropological methods and
knowledge in diverse ways, ranging from traditional aca-
demic research to human rights and international develop-
ment work, as well as collaborative anthropologies. Some
have also entered employment in the government, defence
and intelligence sectors; these include younger, post-9/11
anthropologists. Individual decisions on whether or not to
engage may be determined as much by the project mission
as by the employment opportunity.
However, with little co-ordination among professional
anthropology associations (among which I include gen-
eral and applied anthropology, archaeology and biological
anthropology associations), there is no clear framework
for a set of concise, pointed ethical principles appropriate
to the challenges of the present age. Broadening dialogue
with allied professional associations is one of the tasks set
for Phase II of the Commission’s work.
As often happens, debate on ethics is lagging behind
events. Political considerations – both internal and
external to the profession of anthropology, influence the
timing and pace of debate, as they have in past contro-
versies. A case in point is the emergency response of the
AAA Executive Board’s statement opposing anthropolo-
gists ‘engaging’ with soldiers ‘boots on the ground’ as part
Fig. 1. An NGO worker in
Darfur negotiating the delicate
subject of gender-based crimes
(rape) through a translator
with a local victim in the town
of Nyala. The image points
to the complex set of power
relation between well-meaning
Westerners and vulnerable
populations.

The original version of this

article was prepared for the
Annual Meeting of the Society
for Applied Anthropology, 28
March 2008, Memphis, TN,
for the panel ‘Working with
Government Agencies’.
I gratefully acknowledge the
contribution of Bernard Gert,
who read the section of the
paper on a public moral system
in anthropology. I also express
my personal appreciation for
the spirit as well as the content
of the discussions – formal and
informal – among members

of the AAA Commission on
Engagement of Anthropology
with the US Security and
Intelligence Communities with
whom I have worked since
2006. Gratitude is also extended
to my husband and fellow
anthropologist Richard Lobban,
with whom I have engaged
in a lifetime of conversations
relevant to the subject matter of
this paper. Finally, I thank the
editor of AT and the anonymous
reviewers for their helpful
remarks and suggestions.
1. The pledge states that
those signing it ‘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.’ The Network
of Concerned Anthropologists
is an independent ad hoc
network of anthropologists
seeking to promote an ethical
anthropology (http://concerned.
anthropologists.googlepages.
com/).
2. Derived from Human
Rights Professionals 2008.
3. I argued in a 1994 article
on informed consent that as
anthropologists, ‘we are not
exempt’.
4. ‘The Minerva Research
Initiative is a DoD-sponsored,
university-based social science
research program initiated by the
Secretary of Defense. It focuses
on areas of strategic importance
to U.S. national security
policy. It seeks to increase
the Department’s intellectual
capital in the social sciences and
improve its ability to address
future challenges and build
bridges between the Department
[of Defense] and the social
science community. Minerva
will bring together universities,
research institutions, and
individual scholars and
support multidisciplinary and
cross-institutional projects
addressing specific topic areas
determined by the Department.’
of Human Terrain Systems. With little time to investigate
HTS, especially with respect to the implications of ‘do no
harm’ and informed consent, the AAA decision to declare
this engagement unethical was driven by an overriding
concern about the recruitment of anthropologists, possibly
to serve armed and in uniform. Two HTS-embedded social
scientists employed by BAE Systems, who operate HTS
as defence contractors, have already been killed, including
Michael Bhatia (politics and international relations) in
Afghanistan in May 2008 and Nicole Suveges (political
science) in June 2008. Bhatia’s prior research and humani-
tarian work in refugee camps in East Timor and Kosovo,
and his dissertation research at Oxford University on the
history of the Afghani mujahideen, illustrated the poten-
tial complexity of the motives attracting scholars to HTS
engagement. In the TRADOC news report of his death he
was described as ‘a civilian and an academic’.
Do no harm; lessen harm
‘Do no harm’ is the gold standard of ethical codes in the
biomedical and behavioural sciences. This admonition
may appear simple, but when applied to the complex con-
texts of research, GO or NGO work, or forms of military
engagement, it presents many ethical quandaries. What
does ‘do no harm’ mean when anthropologists study
people engaged in conflict with the researchers’ immediate
employers or funders? In a military-intelligence work
environment these studied populations would be defined
as ‘the enemy’. For most anthropologists, working in such
a context would be unethical and regarded as intelligence-
gathering rather than anthropology. But what about the
anthropologist working with a UN peacekeeping mission
where the ‘good’ and ‘bad guys’ are defined by interna-
tional politics? Anthropologists may be motivated by
principles of beneficence to populations they know well
from past fieldwork experience, and it would not be easy
to weigh up all the consequences of a decision to engage.
‘Do no harm’ has relevance for both morality and ethics,
which are closely related. Morality is founded in principles
of right conduct: it concerns principles rather than laws,
codes or custom normative to specific groups. Ethics is a
system of moral principles, the rules of conduct, associ-
ated with human actions described as right or wrong, good
CAROLYN FLUEHR-LOBBAN
or bad. Philosopher Bernard Gert has defined morality as
avoiding, preventing or lessening harm to other humans
(2005). Thus, ‘do no harm’ is a moral principle that can be
extrapolated to an ethical injunction to avoid, prevent or
lessen harm. Likewise, the lessening of harm is an exten-
sion of common morality.
In conflict or post-conflict situations, the extent to
which an anthropologist can avoid or prevent harm may
be severely limited or impossible to know or predict. The
anthropologist may ask: ‘Will this action expose anyone to
harm?’ However, in practice, it may be difficult to measure
the extent of risk faced by a person; in other cases a person
may willingly assume a level of risk in the interest of pre-
venting further harm. Weighing different factors related to
preventing or lessening harm heightens awareness of the
limitations of any real protection that an anthropologist
can provide. In attempts to prevent or lessen harm, partic-
ular attention would be paid to the most vulnerable groups,
usually women, children, the elderly, refugees, IDPs or
human rights activists. In this case the moral principle of
protecting the vulnerable is reinforced by the ethical norm
to ‘do no harm’.2
Those who are recruited may use ‘avoiding’ or ‘less-
ening harm’ as a motive for engagement with the mili-
tary. Anthropologists who teach or consult for the State
Department, armed forces, military colleges, defence and
intelligence seminars may assert that their engagement has
the potential to lessen harm, as anthropological knowledge
and insights might influence members of the armed forces
– particularly the military leaders they educate – to avoid
or stop using force in conflict zones where they are com-
manding officers implementing policy. They may see their
educational mission as increasing the chances of cerebral
rather than ‘kinetic’ responses in conflict zones. However,
there are other kinds of harm that can be inflicted besides
physical harm, and if employers do not recognize the com-
plexity of the ‘do no harm’ principle in professional ethics
codes, anthropologists will be vulnerable to violating it.
The case for lessening harm also extends to the con-
troversy over Human Terrain Systems. Despite the lack
of empirical evidence so far, advocates of anthropological
work with HTS argue that their presence has resulted in
a dramatic reduction of casualties (McFate 2008). This

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 24 No 4, August 2008 19

BAA Announcement No.
W911NF-08-R-0007, http://
www.arl.army.mil/www/
DownloadedInternetPages/
CurrentPages/
DoingBusinesswithARL/
research/08-R-0007.pdf
American Anthropological
Association (AAA)
2007. ‘Final Report of
the AAA Commission
on the Engagement of
Anthropology with the US
Security and Intelligence
Communities’. http://
www.aaanet.org/pdf/
final_report.pdf.
— 1998 (AAA CoE).
Code of ethics of the
American Anthropological
Association. AAA
Committee on Ethics.
— 1971 (PPR) Statement
on ethics: Principles of
professional responsibility.
AAA Committee on
Ethics.
Asad, Talal 1993. Afterword:
From the history of
colonial anthropology
to the anthropology of
Western hegemony. In:
Stocking, G.W. (ed.)
Colonial situations: Essays
on the contextualization of
ethnographic knowledge,
pp. 314-324. History of
Anthropology Series, vol.
7. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press.
— (ed.) 1973. Anthropology
and the colonial
encounter. London: Ithaca
Press.
Fardon, Richard 2005.
Anthropologists as spies.
A response to ‘CIA
seeks anthropologists’,
news item in AT 20[4].
Anthropology Today 21(3):
25-26.
Fluehr‑Lobban, Carolyn
(ed.) 2003a. Ethics
and the profession of
anthropology: Dialogue
for ethically conscious
practice. 2nd edition.
Walnut Creek, CA:
AltaMira Press.
— 2003b. ‘The spirit and
intent of informed consent
in anthropological
research with vulnerable
populations’. Paper
presented at the American
Anthropological
Association, 20 November,
Chicago, Illinois.
— 1994. Informed consent
in anthropology: We
are not exempt. Human
Organization, 53(1): 1-10.
20 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 24 No 4, August 2008
view could derive from the moral position that right con-
duct fosters attempts to reduce harm in human conflict.
In situations where civil wars threaten civilians with
death, disability or displacement – for example, Darfur –
a moral case can be made for anthropologists to engage
on humanitarian grounds. However, once anthropologists
become instrumentally involved in identifying peoples as
‘enemies’ and allow themselves to be used as instruments
to target populations through warfare, the moral case for
lessening harm is fundamentally compromised and the
engagement is no longer ethical.
Do some good
The influential 1979 Belmont Report in the US, which
outlined the federal ‘protection of human subjects in
research’, made ‘beneficence’ central to its principles and
guidelines. ‘Do no harm’ appeared as one of two general
guidelines under the heading ‘Beneficence’ (defined as the
effort to secure well-being); the other was to maximize
the possible benefits and minimize possible harms. The
positive principle of beneficence, rather than the negative
guideline of avoidance of harm, can be very helpful to
anthropologists in making decisions about engagement in
this imperial age.
Some anthropologists advocate collaborative models of
research (Fluehr‑Lobban 2003, Lassiter 2005) and articu-
late ‘do some good’ as an alternative to ‘do no harm’. Again,
the nature of the mission, rather than any absolutist argu-
ment for or against engagement, may be key to decision-
making when evaluating the goals of the anthropological
assignment. In this respect, the missions and agendas of
military, national security, human rights, public health and
other government and non-government agencies seeking
to employ anthropologists must be visible, accessible and
transparent, so that anthropologists and other practitioners
can make informed decisions.
‘Doing good’ is, of course, an extremely subjective con-
cept, varying widely between different anthropologists
and the different cultures in which they work. ‘Do some
good’ can evolve into anthropologists embracing full-time
research-activist agendas that might be critiqued as inter-
national social work driven by paternalistic/maternalistic
projects with top-down agendas.
In the AAA Code of Ethics and in the Final Report of
the Commission on Engagement of Anthropology with the
US Security and Intelligence Communities, ‘do no harm’
is also addressed as avoidance of harm to the ‘integrity
and reputation of the discipline’ (AAA CoE, III, B.2).
Anthropology associations are thus concerned with pro-
fessional self-protection, as well as protection from harm
for research populations. However, since moral philoso-
phers argue that the fundamental reason for being moral
and ethical is to avoid causing harm to others, not to act
out of self-interest, in the public moral system for anthro-
pology set forth in this article we must distinguish between
harm to the people studied, as a primary harm, and harm to
the discipline, as a secondary harm.
To determine whether involvement in a conflict situa-
tion is ethical, an anthropologist might ask a number of
questions: (1) what harm might potentially occur (e.g. loss
of life, disability, psychological harm)? (2) What harm
would be prevented or avoided? (3) What ethical/moral
norms might be violated as a result of my involvement
(e.g. the informed consent and ‘do no harm’ principles)?
(4) What values, norms, desires of the people affected
would be transgressed? (5) What role exists for cultural
perspectives of morality, norms and ethics?
Informed consent
Informed consent is a key to ethical practice across
Western biomedical, social and behavioural sciences.
Although the concept was derived from the Nuremburg
principles after World War II, a description of informed
consent only appeared in the AAA Code of Ethics ratified
in 1998.3 It is not explicitly stated, but merely implied in
the 1983 Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) code
which requires that practitioners endeavour to ‘disclose
any significant risks to those we study’. Informed consent
exists in the context of international research funding that
is largely dominated by Western standards of ethics and
review.
Development of informed consent in anthropology was
impeded by a number of factors: (1) anthropologists’ his-
torical resistance to complying with institutional review
boards (IRB), often because of insistence on documenta-
tion of informed consent through signed consent forms
deemed inappropriate by many; (2) a general lack of
adequate undergraduate and graduate education in anthro-
pology about the theory and praxis of informed consent,
particularly reflecting upon the balance between potential
benefits and risks of research; (3) the lack of public debate
about what the codes of ethics say, or should say, about
informed consent.
Further, American anthropology missed an historic
opportunity to discuss publicly the meaning and applica-
tion of informed consent at the time of the ‘Darkness in El
Dorado’ controversy. The debates that ensued from a jour-
nalist’s allegations of harm caused to Amazonian popula-
tions by some anthropologists ended up focusing more on
the harm done to anthropologists’ and scientists’ reputa-
tions than on standards of ethical research that may have
harmed a vulnerable indigenous people, the Yanomami.
The notion of informed consent was mobilized in collegial
discourse more to allege wrongdoing than as an opportunity
for public education about the ethical conduct of research.
Having failed to engage sufficiently with this discussion
of informed consent prior to the present moment, anthro-
pologists are today ill-equipped to consider more precisely
the implications of what informed consent might mean in
the context of engagement with the military-defence-
intelligence apparatus.
Anthropological ethics are compromised by mandates
in national security research that conflict with standards of
informed consent. However, in the controversy over HTS,
critical questions about informed consent in the context
of military engagement were raised more by journalists
than by anthropologists. The journalists’ questions were
often couched in absolutist terms (full, informed, non-
coerced consent), rather than in the more nuanced terms
that anthropologists might have framed from their diverse
experiences and practice.
The current AAA Code of Ethics describes informed
consent fairly well, largely because the Committee charged
with drafting the revised code in the mid-1990s took the
initiative to consult with philosophers and colleagues in
allied disciplines. My own views on professional ethics
have been influenced by such perspectives from outside
of anthropology. I was a member of the Commission that
drafted the 1998 code, which states that:
III.A.1. Anthropological researchers should obtain in advance
the informed consent of persons being studied, providing
information, owning or controlling access to material being
studied, or otherwise identified as having interests which might
be impacted by the research. It is understood that the degree
and breadth of informed consent required will depend on the
nature of the project and may be affected by requirements of
other codes, laws, and ethics of the country or community in
which research is pursued. Further it is understood that the
informed consent process is dynamic and continuous; the
process should be initiated in the project design and continue
through implementation by way of dialogue and negotiation
with those studied. Researchers are responsible for identifying
and complying with the various informed consent codes, laws

Gates, Robert M. 2008.
Speech at the Association
of American Universities,
14 April. US Department
of Defense Office of the
Assistant Secretary of
Defense (Public Affairs).
http://www.defenselink.
mil/speeches/speech.
aspx?speechid=1228
Gert, Bernard 2004. Common
morality: Deciding what
to do. New York: Oxford
University Press.
— 2005. ‘Morality’.
Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. http://plato.
stanford.edu
Gusterson, Hugh 2008.
The US military’s quest
to weaponize culture.
Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists 20 June.
Human Rights Professionals
2008. ‘Guiding principles
for human rights
field officers working
in conflict and post
conflict environments’.
http://www.
humanrightsprofessionals.
org/index.
php?id=46&option=com_
content&task=view
Jackson, Jean E. 2008.
Anthropologists express
concern over government
plan to support military-
related research in
universities. MIT Faculty
Newsletter 20(5): 14-15.
Jaschik, Scott 2008a.
Pentagon shift on
‘Minerva’. Inside Higher
Education, 28 May. http://
www.insidehighered.com/
news/2008/05/28/minerva
— 2008b. A Pentagon olive
branch to academe.
Inside Higher Education,
16 April. http://www.
insidehighered.com/
news/2008/04/16/minerva
Kürti, László 2005. The ethics
of spying: Responses to
F. Moos, R. Fardon and
H. Gusterson (AT 21[3]).
Anthropology Today 21(4):
19-21.
Lassiter, Eric Luke 2005.
Collaborative ethnography
and public anthropology.
Current Anthropology
46(1): 83-106.
Low, Setha 2008. Letter to the
Honourable Jim Nussle,
28 May. http://www.
aaanet.org/issues/policy-
advocacy/upload/Minerva-
Letter.pdf
McFate, Montgomery
2008. ‘Influence
and engagement:
Anthropologists and
the national security
community’. Paper
presented at the Society for
Applied Anthropology, 28
March, Memphis, TN.
Mead, Margaret and Métraux,
Rhoda 1953. The study
of culture at a distance.
Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Nas, Peter J.M. 2005.
The ethics of spying.
Responses to F. Moos, R.
Fardon and H. Gusterson
(AT21[3]). Anthropology
Today 21(4): 19-20.
ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 24 No 4, August 2008 21
and regulations affecting their projects. Informed consent, for
the purposes of this code, does not necessarily imply or require
a particular written or signed form. It is the quality of the con-
sent, not the format, that is relevant.
However, this section, with all of its specific admoni-
tions and suggestions, needs to be updated after careful
debate and clarification in relation to the complexities
of military-defence-intelligence engagement in today’s
world. Adding language such as ‘voluntary, non-coerced’
consent requires discussion of what constitutes coercion.
Consent at the point of gun is obviously involuntary, but
consent is also coerced through a vast array of asym-
metrical relationships that define an imperial presence.
Moreover, little attention has been paid to the special
conditions of obtaining informed consent from vulnerable
populations – such as war refugees, IDPs, women and
children, indigenous people and others mentioned above
– with whom anthropologists frequently work. Codes of
ethics need to give special consideration to the possible
lack of agency and need for extra protection of vulner-
able people. Language that acknowledges incapacity, or
the self-determination required for full informed consent,
must reflect the necessary accommodation for vulner-
able categories of populations with whom anthropologists
engage. Articulating the balance of risk and benefit extends
to the point of excluding persons from research activities
that might harm them (see the Belmont Report, section B.1
on ‘respect for persons’). These considerations need to be
more specific in present codes of ethics.
Ethical responsibility in ‘compartmented’
projects
In ‘compartmented’ projects the anthropologist may not
have full knowledge of the mission, goals or methods of
the overall research or policy-related project, and may thus
lack the necessary information and context about risks and
benefits involved in research of affected populations. If it
is unlikely that the risk of harm can be evaluated in such
projects, or if informed consent is unlikely to be suffi-
ciently obtained, or if Institutional Review Board review
and approval is unlikely, the best current advice to practi-
tioners is that such engagement should be avoided.
How can anthropologists negotiate effectively the terms
of their engagement in defence, intelligence or military
projects when they are junior partners – in terms of power
and military hierarchy? This question applies equally
to large development projects controlled by powerful,
bureaucratic governmental and non-governmental insti-
tutions. One answer to the problem of relative lack of
agency would be to clarify and strengthen the language of
the codes of ethics for use in negotiation of the terms of
full-time employment or shorter-term contracts.
For anthropologists, being embedded with military
forces is a context far removed from our traditional
methods of long-term fieldwork, which are based on par-
ticipant-observation with no immediate application of the
knowledge except as scholarship with a value of its own
(Final Report, Commission on Engagement, 2007). This
contrasts with longer-term development goals enunciated
by agencies such US/AID or the World Bank. However,
they both share the problem that the anthropologist
deployed generally lacks agency since s/he is part of a
team where responsibilities and applications of knowledge
are parcelled out and ‘compartmentalized’.
The existing admonition that anthropologists ‘when-
ever possible disseminate their findings to the scientific
and scholarly community’ (AAA CoE, B.4) addresses the
long-standing problem of secret research, but is inadequate
in the present US imperial era. The standard of ‘openness’
(SfAA 1983, 1; AAA CoE 1998 III.A.3, 4) cannot by defi-
nition be fulfilled in classified, non-transparent projects.
The obvious utility of the anthropologist for military-
intelligence agencies begs the question of whether this
engagement is anthropology or intelligence-gathering. I
have argued that contracted research which is neither sub-
ject to public review nor to be publicly disseminated, and
may involve deception, is not anthropological research but
intelligence work (Fluehr‑Lobban 2003). I would add that
secretive, contractual research with non-governmental, as
well as governmental, agencies is also ethically question-
able. Secretive marketing research for corporations has
generally escaped scrutiny, as has contracted proprietary
research for powerful international agencies such as the
World Bank, where reports may not be publicly dissemi-
nated for agreed, lengthy periods of time. Even engagement
with humanitarian agencies needs to be carefully scruti-
nized, for the agendas they pursue may not be transparent
and may be linked to image-building and fund-raising.
Language on secret research
At the 2007 AAA business meeting a resolution was
approved to consider reinstating the 1971 language code
banning secret research: specifically, no secret research,
no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be
agreed to or given (AAA 1971, 6). The Commission on
Engagement found that techniques of ‘remote ethnog-
raphy’ and theoretical modelling used in intelligence
(linked to the Department of Defense and policy develop-
ment), and the use of anthropological knowledge ‘prod-
ucts’ that derive from published resources, are antithetical
to relationships of trust that normally develop in tradi-
tional, long-term anthropological fieldwork. It would be
unethical for anthropologists to be employed in the gener-
ation of ethnographic facts leading to instrumental models
that may be used to harm the people(s) targeted.
However, academic Subject Matter Experts (SMEs,
contracted for defence-intelligence projects for their
expertise in a topic, country or region) may consult openly
without breach of ethics, as unclassified specialists to clas-
sified research projects. Such anthropologists are normally
not asked to keep their engagement secret or to sign non-
­disclosure agreements. Many consultations with defence
and intelligence projects take place within a context of
generalized anonymity where generic ‘non-attribution’
language is employed in public reports.
Remote ethnography and modelling projects are not –
to the best of my current knowledge – subject to external
review. This makes it impossible to verify whether the usual
standards of ‘do no harm’ and informed consent have been
applied, and so these activities may be deemed unethical.
Although a version of ‘remote ethnography’ was used by
Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in
their World War II studies of ‘culture at a distance’, where
they tried to develop portraits of enemy nations (Mead
and Métraux 1953), remote ethnography was not covered
by the 1971 PPR, or the 1998 AAA Code of Ethics. Thus
restoration of the 1971 language on secret research would
not address this point. Anthropologists’ reluctance to
sign non-disclosure agreements has resulted in a growing
acknowledgement by defence and security agencies that
openness is an ethical requirement for their engagement.
Since institutional review is mandated by federal guide-
lines, some might argue that projects serving government
priorities need not be closely scrutinized through external
review. However, there is an ambiguity in the ‘openness’
Defense Secretary Robert Gates (2008) called for in his
announcement of the new Minerva Consortium, a collabo-
ration between defence research and the academy, when he
couched it in these terms: ‘Let me be clear, the key prin-
ciple [...] will be complete openness and rigid adherence to
academic freedom and integrity. There will be no room for
“sensitive but unclassified” or other such restrictions in this
Fig. 2. A photomontage by
Rhode Island College student
Hannah Resseger, depicting
the repatriation and final
burial of the body of Sartje
Baartman (the ‘Hottentot
Venus’) in South Africa in
2002. Baartman’s body had
been held and on display in
the Musée de l’Homme in
Paris for 192 years, reflecting
the anthropology of an earlier
imperialist age.

National Commission for

the Protection of Human
Subjects of Biomedical
and Behavioral Research
1979. The Belmont
Report: Ethical principles
and guidelines for the
protection of human
Hannah Resseger

subjects of research. http://

ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/
belmont.html
Pels, Peter and Salemink,
Oscar (eds) 1999. Colonial
subjects: Essays on
the practical history of
anthropology. Ann Arbor: project’ (see Jaschick 2008a, Jackson 2008). Setha Low, not enforceable. Codes can be enforced only when tied
University of Michigan the AAA President, expressed concern in her letter of 28 to licensing or accreditation standards and grievance pro-
Press.
Price, David H. 2008a.
May to Gates and others about the programme as currently cedures. Since anthropologists have not established such
Anthropological proposed, given that the Defense Department has no track a system with a recognized authority to determine what
intelligence: The record in open research funding in the social sciences; she counts as ethical professional behaviour, the moral-­ethical
deployment and neglect of
argued that public peer review through the normal channels system for anthropology remains an informal public
anthropological knowledge
during the Second World of National Science Foundation, for example, is necessary system where, within limits, anthropologists will agree or
War. Chapel Hill: Duke (see also Jaschick 2008b). Meanwhile, however, in June disagree on acceptable professional behaviour. This means
University Press. the first formal request for proposals under the Minerva that, except for mandatory review by Institutional Review
— 2008b. ‘Soft power,
hard power and the
programme was issued to universities for grants of up to a Boards (IRB), each anthropologist determines for him/her-
anthropological total of US$50 million over a five-year term. Programmes self what is morally and ethically acceptable behaviour.
“leveraging” of cultural will commence on 19 December 2008.4 Gusterson (2008) The ethical standard of ‘do no harm’ – shared by bio-
“assets”: Distilling
warns that Minerva furthers the ‘militarization’ of the medical as well as social science research ethics – relates
the politics and ethics
of anthropological social sciences as a whole, including anthropology. to a common moral system where killing, causing pain or
counterinsurgency’. Debates about ‘openness’ lend weight to the need for disability, or deprivation of freedom or pleasure is immoral,
Plenary paper presented anthropologists to advocate more effectively as a collec- and has been judged as unethical. Striving for standards of
at the Anthropology and
Global Counterinsurgency
tive, both within the profession and to the public, on mat- openness and disclosure in informed consent and trans-
Conference at the ters of ethics. We need to make a sustained effort to ‘open parency in research and employment likewise addresses
University of Chicago, up’ (make more transparent) our ethical concerns so that the moral idea that deceiving, cheating or breaking prom-
Department of
we can negotiate these effectively with potential funders ises (contracts) is also unethical. I argue here that harm to
Anthropology, 26 April.
— 2005 America the and employers. the people studied is a primary harm in the public moral
ambivalent: Quietly selling system, while harm to the discipline or its professionals
anthropology to the CIA. A public moral-ethical system for anthropology is secondary. These suggested first principles of a public
Anthropology Today 21(5):
1-2.
Since anthropology studies human universals, might we not moral system can stimulate discussion of whether or not
Rawls, John 1971. A theory of also be well-positioned to try to arrive at a ‘public moral there is consensus regarding them, and potentially others,
justice. Cambridge, MA: system for anthropology’ from which our ethical princi- in an expanded set of principles that can provide a moral-
Harvard University Press.
ples could be derived and decision-making facilitated? ethical base for future dialogue.
Stocking, George (ed.) 1993.
Colonial situations: Essays Philosopher Bernard Gert (who was a consultant for the
on the contextualization of 1998 AAA code of ethics) defines morality as ‘an informal Concluding remarks
ethnographic knowledge. public system applying to all rational persons, governing Ironically, as American anthropology has begun to decolo-
History of Anthropology
Series, vol. 7. Madison:
behavior that affects others, and has the lessening of evil or nize in both discourse and practice, it is being called upon
University of Wisconsin harm to others as its goal’ (2005). A ‘public moral system’ to serve a declining US imperialism, where ethics and
Press. in anthropology would argue for a common morality rec- morality are often confused with politics, and morality
Society for Applied
ognized by all moral agents, such that killing, causing pain has become a contested notion. After Vietnam, and with
Anthropology
(SfAA) 1983. Ethical or disability, depriving of freedom or pleasure, deceiving, daily reminders of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the
and professional cheating, breaking promises are all immoral unless there US has become a self-conscious imperial power, embar-
responsibilities of the is adequate non-partisan justification for breaking such rassed by its defeats, but still open to finding novel solu-
Society for Applied
Anthropology. http://www.
moral rules (Gert 2004). tions to global dilemmas through the knowledge and
sfaa.net/sfaaethic.html Assuming all rational anthropologists possess moral methods anthropology affords. Anthropologists urgently
TRADOC 2008. TRADOC agency, the question is: what shared ideas from common need clarity about this engagement. The present era calls
News Service, 9 May.
morality might be recognized and accepted as anthropol- for basic education – both in ethical principles and in their
http://smallwarsjournal.
com/blog/2008/05/human- ogy’s public moral system? Current anthropology ethics ambiguities, vigorous debate, and sustained review of the
terrain-team-member-kill/. codes are informal public statements of conduct that are statements and codes of professional associations. l

22 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 24 No 4, August 2008