Cultural Awareness in the Military ― Developments and Implications for Future Humanitarian Cooperation

Militaries around the world are increasingly tasked with complex humanitarian missions that extend beyond their traditional role. Such missions include development, diplomacy, stability, and peacekeeping operations, and often entail long-term engagements with civilian populations in conflict or disaster zones. This edited volume offers a snapshot of both the successes and challenges of the U.S. military's ongoing efforts to enhance its cultural expertise, and provides short and accessible descriptions, with analysis, of the different ways in which this turn to culture has been recently expressed. It provides a landscape of these important but little-understood developments for military colleagues, civilian counterparts from other federal agencies, and non-governmental organizations with whom the U.S. military increasingly collaborates. The book is also intended to orient non-military humanitarian professionals and students to what is currently happening in this rapidly changing environment.

A sociocultural anthropologist, Robert Albro is a Research Associate Professor in American University's Center for Latin American & Latino Studies. His work addresses intersections of culture with policy in contexts of security, diplomacy, science and technology. He has been a Fulbright scholar and fellow at the Library of Congress's John W. Kluge Center, Carnegie Council, and Smithsonian.
Bill Ivey is an American folklorist. He has been director of the Country Music Foundation, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and founding director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy. He is the author of three books, including Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights.