This doubt came from my experience of once anthropology major and study of the background of the anthropologists. Anthropologists know how to use propaganda as they tricked to make people believe that I was crazy and worthless. Anthropologists have connections with the government and know how to spread propaganda, If they start to use their knowledge to mislead the public to believe their research result represents the particular culture, what will happen then?
This is a hypothesis. An anthropologist is planning to study the society A. His purpose may be part his own interest in their culture and other part is to get recognition in the anthropologists' society for better status. Since he needs to get access to local people, he certainly needs to get access to the local authority for make things easier. For that purpose, he might want to get contact with own government. (If he is an agent, easier the things goes. He could get access to the local authority through agency-network in that country.) Knowing the he would be responsible for his research and his later career, he would study the culture and the people thoughtfully. Then, he got the main points of the culture and his work is published. Done. He came back to his office in a college and keeping his eye on evaluation. Some people in the community were actually hired by “Big Brothers” and what the anthropologist got was the information unpreferable for the government. He did not know his interviewees answered what they were told to tell to mislead his research. Then, everyone who saw his work thinks it as the truth about the society.
Another hypothesis. An anthropologist is working for the government. He studied the culture abroad for his formal job and for the agency. The agency thought that he might work on spreading propaganda about the society, then he was asked to add some specific information in his research result. What he has to do is take data that will fit the conclusion that the agency wants to include in his research. He creates the surveys and does observations to get what he needs to prove. Later, his work has published. People think he has done pretty good job as his work was fascinating. Because the agency wants to support own plan, no body will check the facts in his work. Local people who lived with the anthropologist never know what he has written as they do not speak or write the language that anthropologist does. Ah.. I'm not talking about Margaret Mead's Caming Age in Samoa here.
This is what I imagined when I was wondering about why people calling themselves “activists” and being hired by the government – like the city and local cops. FBI oppressed activists in the past because they stood for the minorities. Some people are playing the word “activists” to hide their real definition. I know these fake-activists' real identity. They are informants of the government. Activists are the people who do not work for the government but do no-pay job for protesting to improve our society and stand up for humanity.
17 September, 2007
Is anthropology really telling the truth of cultures?
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