Anthropology and the "War on Terror". Analysis of a complex relationship

The 9/11 events in 2001 and the obsession of Western intelligence agencies to counteract the radical Islamist threat have once more put anthropology in the front line. Indeed, in the current context of ‘War on Terror’, anthropology methods and skills are in demand, but the engagement of the discipline with the military is creating heated debates at the heart of it. In this paper, I analyse the present call from a historical perspective and I highlight its particularities especially in relation to the emerging security-development nexus. In order to do so, I focus on programmes appeared in the USA (Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program) and the UK (Combating Terrorism by Countering Radicalisation). Both programmes employ anthropologists and other social scientists aiming to grasp a better understanding of what military agencies think the enemy is in order to combat it more efficiently. Using internet resources and debates appeared in journals and professional associations extensively, this paper analyses the engagement of anthropology and the military in the twenty-first century taking into account the consequences this relation has outside the discipline but also inside it.