ABSTRACT
November 4, 2008 is a curious day for those who commit themselves to analyzing the relationship between anthropologists and the military. On the one hand, the US Presidential Election was taking place, establishing Barack Obama, an anthropologist's son, as someone who could end, or noticeably alter, the Republican cycle of interventions in the Middle East on the other side of the world. On the other hand, on that same day, in Afghanistan, an incident would bring public attention to the use of anthropologists in sectors of military intelligence in the prospection and employment of troops, there as well as in Iraq. Anthropology, and its concept of "culture", had an important role in World War II and the Cold War in counter-propaganda, spying, analyzing data and tracing strategies to American agencies like the CIA. This chapter focuses on a post-Morgan generation and Lewis Morgan's critics that more directly made the basis of the first uses of anthropology by the war machine.
