The longue durée of the Human Terrain: Politics, cultural knowledge and the technical fix

Abstract

The recent end of the Human Terrain System run by the US Army has brought to a close one of the most recent insidious challenges to the field of anthropology. But while the anthropological elements of the programme have been well documented, and contested, its historical roots have not. The HTS and cultural knowledge apparatus of the American defence establishment draw deeply upon the wells of British scholar administrators of the nineteenth century. Of particular importance, especially in regard to Afghanistan, is Mountstuart Elphinstone who published the foundational text about the country, An account of the Kingdom of Kabul, 200 years ago. But unlike the HTS and similar programmes run by other Western governments which treat culture as a kind of technical aspect of governance, Elphinstone appreciated the importance ‐ and legitimacy ‐ of local politics.