R. Brian Ferguson

R. Brian Ferguson

Email

bfergusn [at] newark.rutgers.edu

Phone

973-353-5837

Office Hours

Hill Hall 619

 

Cultural Anthropology; The Anthropology of War; Ethnic Conflict; State-Tribe Interaction; Policing; Puerto Rico

My interest in explaining war began as a college student during the Viet Nam War.  My first paper in Columbia University’s graduate program in anthropology was an evaluation of four theories about war in Amazonia.   As a graduate student, I organized a student seminar and edited volume on war, which was published by Academic Press in 1984, Warfare, Culture, and Environment.

My field research, though, went in a very different direction.  First, I tried unsuccessfully to obtain permission for research in Cuba, to evaluate Che Guevara’s concept of the “New Socialist Man.”  (I was skeptical that “moral incentives” could replace “material incentives” for labor).  Following that, I conducted fifteen months of research on poverty, politics, and social transformation in Puerto Rico.  “My” village, Jauca, was the site studied by Sidney Mintz in The People of Puerto Rico Project, and I too worked closely with Don Taso Zayas, the “Worker in the Cane.”  The major questions addressed in my thesis, Class Transformations in Puerto Rico, were how the seemingly homogenous “rural proletariat” diversified socially as part of the island’s development, and why the once supremely profitable Puerto Rican sugar industry went into the red and collapsed.

Since completing my dissertation, most of my research has been on war. Five general goals characterize my research and publications.  First, I have tried to develop rigorous, testable theory to explain war, both as a recurrent aspect of the human condition, and in specific cases—why actual wars happen.  This has had three major components.  One is a basic materialist hypothesis, which is summed up as ‘wars occur when those who decide to start a war believe it is in their practical, material self-interest to do so.’   This calls attention to the political structure of decision-making and the total interests of decision-makers.  Another basic part of my theory is a strong political and historical orientation, meaning that war should be studied not as a disembodied cultural pattern, but as a behavioral reality in a concrete historical situation.   This has often meant highlighting the role of Western contact on indigenous peoples.  Lastly, I have always engaged in critical evaluation of other theories, including ecological, social structural, and symbolic explanations of war.  In recent times, my main efforts have been to challenge a variety of biologically oriented explanations, and archaeological claims that war has always been a part of human existence.  The best example of this over-all theoretical pursuit is the monograph Yanomami Warfare: A Political History.

Second, besides developing particular explanatory angles, I have tried to organize and synthesize existing anthropological knowledge on war.  That began with the broad survey in my 1984 volume, then moved on to a book length bibliography The Anthropology of War (with Leslie Farragher) in 1988.  A first attempt at synthesis of major research findings was published in 1990 (“Explaining War”) and connected to a programmatic, non-reductionistic modification of Cultural Materialism (“Infrastructural Determinism,” 1995).  Other efforts at broad synthesis include: a conference, co-edited volume (War in the Tribal Zone), and overviews (“The Violent Edge of Empire,” 1992, with Neil Whitehead, “When Worlds Collide,” 1992) about war-related effects of Western contact; a systematic compilation of war/society linkages comparing tribal peoples and ancient states (“A Paradigm for the Study of War and Society,” 1999); another conference, edited volume (The State, Identity, and Violence), and synthesis  (“Violent Conflict and Control of the State,” 2003) of anthropological findings on large-scale political violence within contemporary states; overviews of global archaeological findings on the origins of war (“Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, and the Origins and Intensification of War,” 2006; “War Before History,” 2008); a general summary of my largest conclusions from all my research on the topic (“Ten Points on War,” 2008); and currently, a book in progress which critically evaluates the entire literature on deadly violence among chimpanzees (Chimpanzees and War).

Third, I have tried to bridge fields.  Within anthropology, that has involved crossing over many regional literatures (although with specialties in the Pacific Northwest Coast and Amazonia), moving from cultural anthropology to archaeology, and conducting extensive research on biological explanations of war, some of which are the focus of  Chimpanzees and War.  Beyond anthropology, I have participated in conferences and volumes that were primarily within the disciplines of history, psychology, political science, and strategic studies.  At the Rutgers Center for Global Change and Governance, I founded and ran the Working Group on Political Violence, War, and Peace, which for several years brought together scholars from many different disciplines.  Two of the overviews just mentioned, “A Paradigm for the Study of War and Society” and “Violent Conflict and Control of the State” were written to connect-up with literatures in history and international relations, respectively.   In all of this work, the objective has been to encourage two-way communication, bringing outside views to anthropologists, and making anthropological findings more widely available.

Fourth, I have always been committed to making anthropological findings applicable to real-world problems of war.  During the Reagan era, this resulted in two publications addressing the potential and peril of anthropological engagement in Cold War issues, “Anthropology and War: Theory, Politics, Ethics” (1989), and “How Can Anthropologists Promote Peace” (1988).  In our current climate, “Tribal, ‘Ethnic,’ and Global Wars” (2006)  and “Ten Points on War” (2008) are theoretical statements applied directly to large scale conflict around the world, including the invasion of Iraq.  This commitment was also expressed by membership in the Reducing Political Violence Action Group, a small team of conflict-reduction practitioners attempting to find new, practical ways to head off political violence, which led to a (so-far) successful peacemaking effort in Guinea-Bissau.  At the moment, I am trying to grapple with issues raised by the new demand for ‘cultural knowledge’ and ‘ethnographic intelligence” from the U.S. Army and other security agencies.  (“The Challenge of Security Anthropology,” 2008).

Fifth, I have made continuous efforts to make research findings known and relevant to non-academic audiences, both policy makers and the general public.  Regarding policy, this has involved many conferences, roundtables and other dialogues at places such as the Council on Foreign Relations, and the McKinsey and Company.  For the public, this has involved accepting just about any speaking invitation that came my way, from grammar schools to television and the web.

Courses Taught

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Culture and Biology
Seminar in Anthropology: War
Culture and Crime
Tribal Warfare

Research Initiatives

In addition to research on war, over many years I have been developing two other, intertwined lines of investigation: the cultural history of the New York City Police, on which I teach a course; and the history of street gangs and their connection to the development of organized crime in New York.  In the former, I show that police are not just about law enforcement, but have been a critical institutional nexus effected by and affecting the general development of urban New York.  That research was the basis for developing a series of talks given in 2002 to the New Jersey State Police, under federally mandated diversity training.   Regarding gangs and organized crime, I hope to show that many standard histories of both 19th century street gangs, and the rise of the 20th century “mob,” are inadequate and often positively misleading.  The long term goal is to produce an overview of organized criminality in New York over the critical transition period of 1895 to 1920.  At a more analytic level, I hope to develop new perspectives on how organized violence, both legitimate and illegitimate, is built into the structure of American urban culture.

Another area of long term interest is in biology and culture, and particular in developing a critical perspective on claims from evolutionary psychology and related approaches that cultural practices can be explained as the result of evolved, inborn predispositions to particular forms of behavior.  I teach a course about this, and have organized panels critiquing the ‘biologizing of culture.’ Criticisms of biological theories of war are found in many of my publications, most notably “Materialist, Cultural, and Biological Theories on Why Yanomami Make War” (2001) and “On Evolved Motivations for War” (2000).  An unpublished paper posted on my departmental website, “How Jews Became Smart: Anti-‘Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence’” (2008), goes in a new direction, critiquing a highly publicized theory on the ‘evolution of Jewish intelligence.’

Over the years, I have also been engaged in other topics of significant public concern, such as organizing conferences or sessions on homelessness and poverty in New York City, on environmental security, and on contemporary street gangs.  Currently in development is an ongoing seminar for the Rutgers-Newark Division of Global Affairs, on Indigenous Peoples and Globalization.  I am a member of the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of the Henry J. Browne Award for Excellence in Teaching from University College, and the Scholar-Teacher Award from Rutgers University.

Interviews



War in Anthropological Perspective

Philoctetes Center Panel, On Aggression: The Politics and Psychobiology of War

John Horgan interviews Brian Ferguson

The Leonard Lopate Show: R. Brian Ferguson (July 14, 2003)

http://audio.aworldofpossibilities.com/audio/ferguson052003.mp3

 

Gangs of New York

An Audio Tour of Historic NY Gangs with R. Brian Ferguson (USA Today)

 

Education

Ph.D. Anthropology, Columbia University, 1988

Publications

Books

(Editor) The State, Identity, and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World. Routledge, 2003.

Yanomami Warfare: A Political History.  School of American Research, 1995.

(Editor, with Neil Whitehead) War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare. School of American Research Press, 1992,

The Anthropology of War: A Bibliography (with Leslie Farragher). The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, 1998.

(Editor) Warfare, Culture, and Environment. Academic Press, 1984.

Articles - for Ferguson’s writings, please go to: https://www.rbrianferguson.com/    

History, Explanation, and War Among Yanomami Response Chagnons Noble Savages

Full Spectrum - The Military Invasion of Anthropology (2013)

The Prehistory of War and Peace in Europe and the Near East (2013)

Pinker's List - Exaggerating Prehistoric War Mortality (2013)

Neil Lancelot Whitehead (1956-2012) (2013)

Tribal Warfare (2012) 

Why Evolutionary Psychology Cannot be True (2012)

Anthropology as we Know it: A Casualty of War? (2012)

Full Spectrum: The Military Invasion of Anthropology (2012)

Born to Live: Challenging Killer Myths (2011)

Plowing the Human Terrain: Toward Global Ethnographic Surveillance (2011) 

Tribal Warfare (2011)

Restudying Canamelar of The People of Puerto Rico (2011)

Killing Bill: Politics, Policing and Street Violence in the Gangs of New York Era (2011)

Marvin Harris at Columbia in the 1970’s (2010)

How Jews Became Smart (2008)

Ten Points on War (2008)

War Before History (2008)

Tribal, "Ethnic", and Global Wars (2006)

Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, and the Origins and Intensificaton of War (2006)

Tribal Warfare and "Ethnic" Conflict (2005)

The Birth of War (2003)

Violent Conflict and Control of the State (2003)

Materialist, Cultural and Biological Theories on Why Yanomami Make War (2001)

Evolved Motivations for War (2000)

A Paradigm for the Study of War and Society (1999)

Whatever Happened to the Stone Age? Steel Tools and Yanomami Historical Ecology (1998)

Taso Zayas Dies in Puerto Rico (1996)

The Yanomamo during the Western Retraction, 1920 to 1940 (1995)

Maneuvering into War: The Yanomamo, 1940 to 1950 (1995)

The Yanomamo and the Missionaries, 1950 to 1960 (1995)

The Yanomami and the Anthropologist: 1960 to 1966 (1995)

The Yanomamo, 1966 to 1992: Acculturation Accelerates (1995)

Explaining Yanomami Warfare: Alternatives and Implications (1995)

Infrastructural Determinism (1995)

When Worlds Collide: The Columbian Encounter in Global Perspective (1992)

The Violent Edge of Empire (War in the Tribal Zone, 1992)

A Savage Encounter: Western Contact and the Yanomami War Complex (1992)

Tribal Warfare (1990)

Blood of the Leviathan: Western contact and warfare in Amazonia (1990)

Explaining War (1990)

Anthropology and War: Theory, Politics, Ethics (1989)

How Can Anthropologists Promote Peace? (1988)

War and the Sexes

Ecological Consequences

Game Wars?

Warfare and Redistributive Exchange

A Reexamination of Northwest Coast

Introduction: Studying War

Class Transformations in Puerto Rico (1988)

     Preface through Chapter 3 (up to 1920, pp. 0-112)

     Chapter 4 (1920-1940, pp. 113-256)

     Chapter 5, Part I (1940-1960, pp. 257-421)

     Chapter 5, Part II (1940-1960, pp. 422-604)

Conclusion, Appendix, and References (pp. 605-676)

Four Decades in the Life of a Puerto Rican Community (1982)

 

Interviews

Male-Male Competition, Globalization, War and Peace, Helix Center (2012)

JK Fowler interview on War, Jewish Intelligence, New York Police and Organized Crime (2010)

War in Anthropological Perspective (2009)
Philoctetes Center Panel, On Aggression: The Politics and Psychobiology of War
Philoctetes Center Panel

John Horgan interviews Brian Ferguson (2008)

The Leonard Lopate Show: R. Brian Ferguson (July 14, 2003)

Gangs of New York
 

Associated Programs

  • Department of Anthropology, Rutgers New Brunswick​
  • Division of Global Affairs