Megha Vemuri called out MIT for having research ties with the Israeli army and "aiding and abetting" the country with its "assault on the Palestinian people."
I majored in Anthropology in college. I remember watching a documentary about Napoleon Chagnon’s ethnographic study of the Yanomami (a hunting-gathering people in the Amazon) and being surprised about the notice at the beginning stating that his research had been funded by the Atomic Energy Commission. Turns out that many ethnographies from the '50s and '60s were funded by the AEC because they just wanted baseline physiological data on peoples who had not yet been exposed to large amounts of radiation and environmental nuclear byproducts. The actual study of their cultures was a byproduct.
I feel that these ethnographies are an absolutely precious resource as they reveal so much about how our ancestors lived a lifestyle that has completely vanished now, but it’s still kind of depressing to think about where they came from.
I majored in Anthropology in college. I remember watching a documentary about Napoleon Chagnon’s ethnographic study of the Yanomami (a hunting-gathering people in the Amazon) and being surprised about the notice at the beginning stating that his research had been funded by the Atomic Energy Commission. Turns out that many ethnographies from the '50s and '60s were funded by the AEC because they just wanted baseline physiological data on peoples who had not yet been exposed to large amounts of radiation and environmental nuclear byproducts. The actual study of their cultures was a byproduct.
I feel that these ethnographies are an absolutely precious resource as they reveal so much about how our ancestors lived a lifestyle that has completely vanished now, but it’s still kind of depressing to think about where they came from.