Ethnography and Assessment: Teaching Anthropological Approaches in Intelligence Analysis

1. Ethnography and Assessment:Teaching Anthropological Approaches in Intelligence Analysis 6th Annual IAFIE Conference Steven Strang Royal Canadian Mounted Police steve.strang@rcmp-grc.gc.ca

2. What Is Anthropology • Physical Anthropology • Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology / Ethnography • Methods of data collection • Approaches to analysis

3. Culture? Opera Ballet Painting Sculpture Music Theatre Economic structures Customary behaviour Conflict management Political behaviour Cosmology Kinship terms Marriage patterns Religious practices Symbolic markers

4. Anthropology and Intelligence Analytic – eg: The Chrysanthemum And The Sword Operational – eg: Cultural Terrain Teams

5. Anthropological Approaches • Collection • Participant Observation • Analysis • Objectivity • Emic and Etic understandings • Cultural Relativism

6. The Grammar and Vocabulary of Cultures • Vocabulary = the specific things people do • Grammar = the rules for the things they do, the code of appropriate behavior

7. Subculture attitudes to external society: an example • Accepted as necessary, usefulness recognized: • Work, health care • Accepted as inevitable, usefulness doubted: • Education beyond elementary school • Welcomed on highly selective basis: • Consumer goods, mass media entertainment • Viewed with suspicion and curiosity, but mostly ignored: • Social services, welfare agencies • Viewed with hostility, considered exploitative: • Law, police, government

8. Group Dynamics • Fusion and fission • Kinship and Sodalities • Tribes and Clans • Feuds and alliances • Adaptation • Leadership models • Band leader, headman, or chief

9. Leadership Models Band Leader – personal respect & longer membership in small unstable group. Situational. Persuasion & example. Headman – more likely to be lineage-based, increased role in dispute resolution. Chief – lineage-based, able to give orders & establish rules. The larger the group, the greater the need for formal hierarchies, internal rules, and specialization

10. Some Ethnographic Elements in Analyses • Explicit and implicit ethical rules on behaviour, including target selection • Distribution of power and influence • Boundaries of membership

11. Some More Ethnographic Elements in Intelligence Analyses • What defines the group • Nature and extent of internal divisions • Motivators and inhibitors of individual conduct • Current pressures and stresses • Current changes underway in group culture • Cosmology - beliefs and values • Attitude to outsiders • Taboos

12. Challenges Mirror imaging Subjective judgment Biases in collection and analysis Gaps in collection and analysis

13. Applications • Understand the rules they operate by • Identify indicators of internal change • Understand their vulnerabilities to penetration and disruption • Identify key areas of possible misunderstanding and misinterpretation • Recommend potential tactics and strategies