Montgomery McFate
Montgomery McFate (born 8 January 1966) is a cultural anthropologist who works on defense and national security issues. Dr. McFate is currently the Senior Social Scientist for the US Army’s Human Terrain System. [1]
Education and Career
McFate received a B.A. from University of California at Berkeley, a Ph.D in Anthropology from Yale University. Her Ph.D dissertation concerned British counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland. [2] According to The New Yorker 'she spent living among supporters of the Irish Republican Army and then among British counterinsurgents,' where she discovered that 'insurgency runs in families and social networks, held together by persistent cultural narratives'. [3]
After receiving her doctorate in 1994, McFate joined Harvard Law School, where she earned her juris doctor (professional qualification) in 1997. She took a clinical internship on the United States Attorney's Office Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Squad, and a fellowship at Human Rights Watch. [4] In 1997 she became a litigation associate at the law firm of Baker & McKenzie in San Francisco. [5] That year she married a soldier Sean McFate and left Baker & McKenzie when he was posted to Germany. [6]
Before being awarded a fellowship at the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research McFate worked as a social scientist in RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center, [7] where she studied North Korean society. [8] She was subseqently awarded a fellowship at the Office of Naval Research and in 2004 she says she got a call from a science adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was asked to advise on Iraqi society and according to The New Yorker 'turned for help to one of the few anthropologists he could find in the Defense Department'. [9]
Views
McFate is one of a number of figures within the US military establishment who advocate the use of cultural anthropology as a means of military domination (other notable figures include John Nagl and David Kilcullen). In 2006 The New Yorker wrote that: 'For five years, McFate...has been making it her “evangelical mission” to get the Department of Defense to understand the importance of “cultural knowledge.”' [10]
Notes
- ↑ montgomerymcfate.com, Homepage, accessed 29 May 2009
- ↑ montgomerymcfate.com, Homepage, accessed 29 May 2009
- ↑ George Packer, '[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/18/061218fa_fact2 Knowing the Enemy', The New Yorker, 18 December 2006
- ↑ montgomerymcfate.com, Homepage, accessed 29 May 2009
- ↑ Matthew B. Stannard, 'Montgomery McFate's Mission. Can one anthropologist possibly steer the course in Iraq?', San Francisco Chronicle, 29 April 2007
- ↑ Matthew B. Stannard, 'Montgomery McFate's Mission. Can one anthropologist possibly steer the course in Iraq?', San Francisco Chronicle, 29 April 2007
- ↑ montgomerymcfate.com, Homepage, accessed 29 May 2009
- ↑ Matthew B. Stannard, 'Montgomery McFate's Mission. Can one anthropologist possibly steer the course in Iraq?', San Francisco Chronicle, 29 April 2007
- ↑ George Packer, '[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/18/061218fa_fact2 Knowing the Enemy', The New Yorker, 18 December 2006
- ↑ George Packer, '[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/18/061218fa_fact2 Knowing the Enemy', The New Yorker, 18 December 2006
