Content area
Full text
Abstract: The concept of the "tribe" has captured the imagination of military planners, who have been inspired partly by social scientists. Interest in tribes stems from events in Iraq's al-Anbar province, where the US military has co-opted Sunni "tribal" leaders. Some social scientists have capitalized on these developments by doing contract work for the Pentagon. For example, the "Iraq tribal study"-prepared by a private company consisting of anthropologists and political scientists among others-suggests employing colonial-era techniques (such as divide and conquer) for social control. It also advocates bribing local leaders, a method that has become part of the US military's pacification strategy. Such imperial policing techniques are likely to aggravate armed conflict between and among ethnic groups and religious sects. Observers report that the US strategy is creating a dangerous situation resembling the Lebanese civil war, raising ethical questions about social scientists' involvement in these processes.
Keywords: anthropology and the military, colonialism, ethics, Iraq, tribes
Few concepts have provoked as much debate among anthropologists as the idea of a "tribe." 1 Like culture, nature, and community, it has sparked heated controversy for decades. Anthropologists generally avoid the term, because it often confuses rather than clarifies social analysis. In common usage, however, it has tended to acquire two interrelated meanings. Historians, political scientists, and the public have used tribe to describe archaic, "savage," or non-literate peoples; for example, ancient Germanic tribes. At the same time, government officials have frequently adopted it as an administrative category for classifying colonized groups across Africa, Asia, and North America.2
In the United States, the concept of tribe was employed during the nineteenth century to refer to Native American groups in both senses-as uncivilized savages and as subjects to be relocated and administered by the War Department's Office of Indian Affairs (later the Bureau of Indian Affairs). President Andrew Jackson's message to the US Congress in December 1830-an appeal for passage of the Indian Removal Act-illustrates the congruence:
"[The Act] will place a dense and civilized [white] population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier. ... It...