The Military Advisor as Warrior-King and Other “Going Native” Temptations

Abstract

A lthough anthropologists and military advisors may seem to make for strange bedfellows, they actually have more in common than meets the eye. Both spend long periods of time in the field, living with locals. Both must figure out how to establish rapport. And both are confronted by similar kinds of cross-cultural communication challenges, as well as by a host of temptations. Among the most common but also insidious of these is that of “going native,” though for advisors “going native” has yet to be well defined. Clarification of this term is one goal of this chapter. A second is to point out that from the locals’ perspective, of course, no advisor or anthropologist would ever be mistaken for a native. Instead, “going native” is purely a nonnative’s fear—or fantasy—and can pose problems for anyone relying on an anthropologist or advisor’s work. This is because members of both professions are forced to straddle two slippery slopes. On one hand, empathy can all too easily lead to sympathy, in which case any semblance of distance or objectivity is lost. On the other, being treated as a “bwana” or warrior-king can prove irresistibly seductive, and may wind up warping one’s sense of mission.