Anthropology Goes to War: Professional Ethics & Counterinsurgency in Thailand

Book Description
An in-depth analysis of the Thailand Controversy--involving anthropologists whose work in Thailand in the 1960s was used by the U.S. government in a counterinsurgency campaign--and the American Anthropological Association investigation that followed.

From the Publisher
Distributed for the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

About the Author
Eric Wakin is a travel writer and consultant in New York City. He traveled extensively in Thailand and earned degrees in Southeast Asian studies and political science.


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In April 1970 a major controversy over anthropological ethics erupted at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies. Activists from the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam circulated the corridors of the San Francisco Hilton handing out copies of confidential documents taken from the office files of Professor Michael Moerman, a UCLA anthropologist specializing in Thailand. Detailing the involvement of prominent social scientists in U.S. counterinsurgency operations, the documents sparked outrage within an academic community already polarized by the Vietnam War. In this first comprehensive study of the controversy, Eric Wakin provides its key documents and dramatic moments. Although the controversy has, after 20 years, subsided, the ethical issues raised in this debate remain relevant for all those who do field research in the social sciences.


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