Whitehead / Finnström Virtual War and Magical Death

Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8223-7904-1
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten

Reihe: The Cultures and Practice of Violence

The contributors to this provocative collection scrutinize the relations between anthropology and contemporary global war, contending that modern high-tech warfare is analogous to rituals of magic and sorcery, and examining the U.S. military's exploitation of ethnographic research.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Whitehead, Neil L.

Finnström, Sverker

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Virtual War and Magical Death / Neil L. Whitehead and Sverker Finnström 1

1. Ethnography, Knowledge, Torture, and Silence / Neil L. Whitehead 26

2. The Role of Culture in Wars Waged by Robots: Connecting Drones, Anthropology, and Human Terrain System's Prehistory / David Price 46

3. Cybernetic Crystal Ball: "Forecasting" Insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan / Roberto J. González 65

4. Full Spectrum: The Military Invasion of Anthropology / R. Brian Ferguson 85

5. Today He Is No More: Magic, Intervention, and Global War in Uganda / Sverker Finnström 111

6. The Hostile Gaze: Night Vision and the Immediation of Nocturnal Combat in Vietnam and Iraq / Antonius C. G. M. Robben 132

7. Virtual Soldiers, Cognitive Laborers / Robertson Allen 152

8. Virtual Wars in the Tribal Zone: Air Strikes, Drones, Civilian Casualties, and Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan and Pakistan / Jeffrey A. Sluka 171

9. Propaganda, Gangs, and Social Cleansing in Guatemala / Victoria Sanford 194

10. The Soundtrack to War / Matthew Sumera 214

11. War at Large: Miner Magic and the Carrion System / Koen Stroeken 234

References 251

Contributors 279

Index 281

Über Autor(innen)

Neil L. Whitehead (1956–2012) was Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His books Dark Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent Death and In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia (coedited with Robin Wright) are both published by Duke University Press.Sverker Finnström is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Uppsala University. He received the Margaret Mead Award for Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda, also published by Duke University Press.