Catherine Lutz | Brown University (original) (raw)

Military/War by Catherine Lutz

American Ethnologist, 2007, 34 (2): 322-28

In Ida Susser and Jeffrey Maskovsky, eds. Rethinking America. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2009.

The wars less known

The world we live in—its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its see... more The world we live in—its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence—is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget.—Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost

ABSTRACT Recent writing that identifies the United States as an empire has focused overwhelmingly... more ABSTRACT Recent writing that identifies the United States as an empire has focused overwhelmingly on its political-economic underpinnings, without questioning the cultural making of value or examining empire as more than an elite project. This writing has not drawn on ethnographic work that would reshape it in more adequate, less economistic forms, make the human face and frailties of imperialism more visible, and, in so doing, make challenges to imperial practice more likely.

One novel way news reporters have tried to pinpoint the start of major US military engagements is... more One novel way news reporters have tried to pinpoint the start of major US military engagements is to monitor pizza deliveries at the Pentagon. It's been called the “Domino's theory”: When the generals and their staffs go into imminent-war mode, they stay at their posts late into the night, and the pizza orders shoot up.

This article compares the sociopolitical context of the origin of the Junior Reserve Officer Trai... more This article compares the sociopolitical context of the origin of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) to the period of its radical expansion during the 1990s. In its early years, military training aimed to Americanize new Southern and Eastern European immigrants while easing upper-class fears of social tensions and building support for impending military actions.

United States: Militarization and the Current Crisis

It takes a good deal more courage, work and knowledge to dissolve words like ''war''and ''peace''... more It takes a good deal more courage, work and knowledge to dissolve words like ''war''and ''peace''into their elements, recovering what has been left out of peace processes that have been determined by the powerful, and then placing that missing actuality back in the center of things.... The best corrective is, as Dr. Johnson said, to imagine the person whom you are discussing–in this case the person on whom the bombs will fall–reading you in your presence.

Report examines the JROTC program's history, consideration of its distribution & relation to mili... more Report examines the JROTC program's history, consideration of its distribution & relation to military manpower needs, & an analysis of its curriculum. Focuses on 2 ways to analyze the JROTC program: 1) Should the program be in the public schools & basically does it produce the educational results it claims; & 2) Should the public schools be used for the benefit of organizations like the military whose goals are not those accepted as the primary goals of public education in a democracy.

Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping mi... more Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping missions over the course of many years. 1 Reports of abuse by peacekeepers in Cambodia and the Balkans in the 1990s were followed by news of similar problems in West African missions in 2001 and 2002. The Secretary General subsequently issued a 2003 Bulletin outlining a zero-tolerance policy, but the abuse continued. In 2004, peacekeeper misconduct became widely known through mainstream media reports that UN personnel in MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been engaging in sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) of local women and children. The SEA included, most egregiously, peacekeepers' exchange of UN food supplies or money for sex with young girls and sometimes boys. SEA has been a particular problem in mission areas where extreme poverty and conflict or post-conflict trauma and social dislocation drive local people to sell their bodies, but it has occurred in more developed contexts as well, such as Cyprus and Kosovo. The UN response to these problems has been to establish, in 2005, a Conduct and Discipline Unit with offices in New York and mission areas, charged with addressing the problem in a variety of ways. SEA continues to occur since then, with serious incidents revealed in Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, and again in the Congo.

ABSTRACT Our job as intellectuals, this article argues, is to struggle to understand the crisis p... more ABSTRACT Our job as intellectuals, this article argues, is to struggle to understand the crisis presented by terrorism in all its forms. This can center on a theoretical account of militarization and its relationship to broader social changes, from the emergence of nationstates to the course of racialization and other inequalities to the convergence of interests in military spending.

Emotions by Catherine Lutz

RESUMO O texto apresenta uma reflexão pautada na articulação entre emoção e ciência. Sendo esta p... more RESUMO O texto apresenta uma reflexão pautada na articulação entre emoção e ciência. Sendo esta possível ao deslocar o entendimento sobre o fenômeno das emoções distante do familiar, onde este é pensado como fenômeno pouco racional.

Interest in" the emotional" has burgeoned in the last decade, not only in anthropology, but in ps... more Interest in" the emotional" has burgeoned in the last decade, not only in anthropology, but in psychology (eg 5, 77, 113, 141), sociology (eg 72, 81), philosophy (eg 153, 177), history (eg 180), and feminist studies (eg 176).

Catherine Lutz aceitou ser entrevistada, respondendo simpaticamente aos nossos emails, ainda ante... more Catherine Lutz aceitou ser entrevistada, respondendo simpaticamente aos nossos emails, ainda antes de chegar ao Congresso da SIEF em Lisboa, sobre o tema “People make places–ways of feeling the world “, que ocorreu em abril de 2011 e no qual ela viria a figurar como keynote speaker. 1 Recebeu-nos nas instalações da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, onde tínhamos preparadas várias questões sobre sua obra e sua trajetória. Não era a sua primeira vez em Lisboa.

Visual studies by Catherine Lutz

The National Geographic magazine is of tremendous potential cultural importance. Its photographs ... more The National Geographic magazine is of tremendous potential cultural importance. Its photographs have voraciously focused on Third World scenes, its over 10 million subscriber households make it as popular a source of images as any in American mass mediated culture, and its lavish production capabilities and cultural legitimacy as a scientific institution make it an ideological practice that powerfully relates to the history and structure of the society in which it has developed.

Papers by Catherine Lutz

Identities-global Studies in Culture and Power, 2010

American Ethnologist, 2007, 34 (2): 322-28

In Ida Susser and Jeffrey Maskovsky, eds. Rethinking America. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2009.

The wars less known

The world we live in—its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its see... more The world we live in—its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence—is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget.—Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost

ABSTRACT Recent writing that identifies the United States as an empire has focused overwhelmingly... more ABSTRACT Recent writing that identifies the United States as an empire has focused overwhelmingly on its political-economic underpinnings, without questioning the cultural making of value or examining empire as more than an elite project. This writing has not drawn on ethnographic work that would reshape it in more adequate, less economistic forms, make the human face and frailties of imperialism more visible, and, in so doing, make challenges to imperial practice more likely.

One novel way news reporters have tried to pinpoint the start of major US military engagements is... more One novel way news reporters have tried to pinpoint the start of major US military engagements is to monitor pizza deliveries at the Pentagon. It's been called the “Domino's theory”: When the generals and their staffs go into imminent-war mode, they stay at their posts late into the night, and the pizza orders shoot up.

This article compares the sociopolitical context of the origin of the Junior Reserve Officer Trai... more This article compares the sociopolitical context of the origin of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) to the period of its radical expansion during the 1990s. In its early years, military training aimed to Americanize new Southern and Eastern European immigrants while easing upper-class fears of social tensions and building support for impending military actions.

United States: Militarization and the Current Crisis

It takes a good deal more courage, work and knowledge to dissolve words like ''war''and ''peace''... more It takes a good deal more courage, work and knowledge to dissolve words like ''war''and ''peace''into their elements, recovering what has been left out of peace processes that have been determined by the powerful, and then placing that missing actuality back in the center of things.... The best corrective is, as Dr. Johnson said, to imagine the person whom you are discussing–in this case the person on whom the bombs will fall–reading you in your presence.

Report examines the JROTC program's history, consideration of its distribution & relation to mili... more Report examines the JROTC program's history, consideration of its distribution & relation to military manpower needs, & an analysis of its curriculum. Focuses on 2 ways to analyze the JROTC program: 1) Should the program be in the public schools & basically does it produce the educational results it claims; & 2) Should the public schools be used for the benefit of organizations like the military whose goals are not those accepted as the primary goals of public education in a democracy.

Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping mi... more Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping missions over the course of many years. 1 Reports of abuse by peacekeepers in Cambodia and the Balkans in the 1990s were followed by news of similar problems in West African missions in 2001 and 2002. The Secretary General subsequently issued a 2003 Bulletin outlining a zero-tolerance policy, but the abuse continued. In 2004, peacekeeper misconduct became widely known through mainstream media reports that UN personnel in MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been engaging in sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) of local women and children. The SEA included, most egregiously, peacekeepers' exchange of UN food supplies or money for sex with young girls and sometimes boys. SEA has been a particular problem in mission areas where extreme poverty and conflict or post-conflict trauma and social dislocation drive local people to sell their bodies, but it has occurred in more developed contexts as well, such as Cyprus and Kosovo. The UN response to these problems has been to establish, in 2005, a Conduct and Discipline Unit with offices in New York and mission areas, charged with addressing the problem in a variety of ways. SEA continues to occur since then, with serious incidents revealed in Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, and again in the Congo.

ABSTRACT Our job as intellectuals, this article argues, is to struggle to understand the crisis p... more ABSTRACT Our job as intellectuals, this article argues, is to struggle to understand the crisis presented by terrorism in all its forms. This can center on a theoretical account of militarization and its relationship to broader social changes, from the emergence of nationstates to the course of racialization and other inequalities to the convergence of interests in military spending.

RESUMO O texto apresenta uma reflexão pautada na articulação entre emoção e ciência. Sendo esta p... more RESUMO O texto apresenta uma reflexão pautada na articulação entre emoção e ciência. Sendo esta possível ao deslocar o entendimento sobre o fenômeno das emoções distante do familiar, onde este é pensado como fenômeno pouco racional.

Interest in" the emotional" has burgeoned in the last decade, not only in anthropology, but in ps... more Interest in" the emotional" has burgeoned in the last decade, not only in anthropology, but in psychology (eg 5, 77, 113, 141), sociology (eg 72, 81), philosophy (eg 153, 177), history (eg 180), and feminist studies (eg 176).

Catherine Lutz aceitou ser entrevistada, respondendo simpaticamente aos nossos emails, ainda ante... more Catherine Lutz aceitou ser entrevistada, respondendo simpaticamente aos nossos emails, ainda antes de chegar ao Congresso da SIEF em Lisboa, sobre o tema “People make places–ways of feeling the world “, que ocorreu em abril de 2011 e no qual ela viria a figurar como keynote speaker. 1 Recebeu-nos nas instalações da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, onde tínhamos preparadas várias questões sobre sua obra e sua trajetória. Não era a sua primeira vez em Lisboa.

The National Geographic magazine is of tremendous potential cultural importance. Its photographs ... more The National Geographic magazine is of tremendous potential cultural importance. Its photographs have voraciously focused on Third World scenes, its over 10 million subscriber households make it as popular a source of images as any in American mass mediated culture, and its lavish production capabilities and cultural legitimacy as a scientific institution make it an ideological practice that powerfully relates to the history and structure of the society in which it has developed.

Local Democracy Under Siege: Activism, Public Interests, and Private Politics

2007 Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA) Book Award What is the state of de... more 2007 Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA) Book Award

What is the state of democracy at the turn of the twenty-first century? To answer this question, seven scholars lived for a year in five North Carolina communities. They observed public meetings of all sorts, had informal and formal interviews with people, and listened as people conversed with each other at bus stops and barbershops, soccer games and workplaces. Their collaborative ethnography allows us to understand how diverse members of a community not just the elite think about and experience “politics” in ways that include much more than merely voting.

This book illustrates how the social and economic changes of the last three decades have made some new routes to active democratic participation possible while making others more difficult. Local Democracy Under Siege suggests how we can account for the current limitations of U.S. democracy and how remedies can be created that ensure more meaningful participation by a greater range of people.