Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of Their Curious Relationship from Military Review

There are many great things in this article. Among them is this quote which sum up why I am not an anthropologist despite the fact that all my research focuses on culture:

“Rejecting anthropology’s status as the handmaiden of colonialism, anthropologists refused to “collaborate” with the powerful, instead vying to represent the interests of indigenous peoples engaged in neocolonial struggles…Thus began a systematic interrogation of the contemporary state of the discipline as well as of the colonial circumstances from which it emerged. Armed with critical hermeneutics, frequently backed up by self- reflexive neo-Marxism, anthropology began a brutal process of self- flagellation, to a degree almost unimaginable to anyone outside the discipline.”