Dissertation Research: Defending the Homeland: The Cultural Construction of U.S. Defense in Everyday Practice

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, people in agencies at multiple levels of government have sought to prepare for terrorist attacks. Attempts to form a functional response structure have been hampered by communication and coordination problems among practitioners unaccustomed to their new roles in national defense. This dissertation research project by a student of cultural anthropology is a multi-sited, ethnographic study of homeland defense in the United States. The research will be conducted in a policy-based community comprising those individuals working in local, state, and federal level organizations operating in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Based on network and domain analyses in conjunction with ethnographic interviews, the study will examine (1) how practitioners from varied backgrounds (police, medical personnel, FBI agents, firefighters) construct their models of homeland defense, (2) how those models affect interactions, and (3) how local experiences intersect with and potentially transform policies. It examines homeland defense as an area of daily practice and discourse through which traditional ideas of defense are challenged and either maintained or transformed. The project advances anthropological knowledge of defense as a culturally constructed institution, expands the application of practice theory, and addresses the methodological challenges of studying multi-sited organizations as parts of daily social life. Of particular relevance, the research has the potential to offer practical insights into communication barriers that hamper coordination of homeland defense efforts.