From our readings, we have already observed that Lewis is quite adept at concealing certain aspects of his activities that could be controversial.  For example, though he calls himself a "missionary anthropologist" in his book "Peoples of the Golden Triangle," nothing is said about his own missionary work among the people who are the subjects of the book.  Even in his University of Oregon PhD thesis, he evades saying explicitly (though he does say it) that he wants and needs the Akha people to become Christians as an integral part of his sterilization project. 

 

You see, the traditional Akha Lewis worked with would not usually want a laparotomy unless they had already borne a son or two, to carry on "the line" [their lineage].  The only Akha women who would accept the surgery without having first had sons were Christians (read more about this in Lewis's own words on page 161 of his thesis, on this website: "Christians seem to choose sterilization more readily than non-Christians.").  Those Christian Akha who accepted sterilization before bearing sons felt no more need to continue "the line," having been told by missionaries that "ancestor worship" (which is, of course, "evil") was what they were doing when they recited their geneology.

 

To Lewis, the perceived urgency of "the population problem" excused any action he would take in disfiguring Akha traditions.  He wanted to see their traditions disintegrate.  All in the interests of what he claimed would be a better future for the Akha people, if only his prescribed steps would be taken now.  It seems his project was, for him, almost divinely mandated, just another variation on the Great Commission.  But perhaps it was mandated by another, more worldly power...

 

It really makes one wonder, what other sorts of "necessary evils" was this man capable of undertaking "for the greater good"?  Would he will the destruction of all tribal peoples' livelihoods and force them to assimilate (to come down from the mountains) simply to assure that there would be no "communist infiltration" of their territories?  Would he use his "ethnographic" intelligence to further the interests of his own nation and associates, to the detriment of the tribal people he worked among for so long? 

 

Lewis only hints at those parts of his work which may be controversial.  He would never say outright that his aim was to completely transfigure the ways of life of the people he was studying. 

 

Most likely neither would the other social scientists associated with the Tribal Research Center.  But you can decide for yourself:

 

(and be sure to read Peter Hinton's rebuttals too, he makes some good points, but cannot speak for the extent of all social scientists' involvements in war efforts, nor does he deny things like the ARPA presence at Chiang Mai University)

*****

from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10763

 

"On March 30 of this year, the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam submitted documents to us implicating American social scientists in counter-insurgency activities in Thailand....."

 

"....anthropologists have known for some time of the operations of a Tribal Research Center at Chiang Mai, Thailand, which underwrites large convocations of scholars and other interested parties, maintains a considerable staff, has installed a computer, provides facilities for occasional users of their resources, and other amenities. For example, in January, 1970, social scientists from several countries gathered at Chiang Mai at a "Consultants' Meeting," together with representatives from forty-three organizations, including ARPA, Military Research Development Center, United States Operations Mission, South East Asia Treaty Organization, Thailand Police Department, Thailand Department of Central Intelligence, Thailand National Security Council, United States Information Service, the Peace Corps, and eleven Christian missions.

 

The Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lanna Thai Social Science Research Center, Chiang Mai, described the meeting as a first step toward establishing communication among agencies interested in the "Tribal Data Center." His group, he said,

 

…intended to develop systems of collecting, coding, processing, integrating, storing, updating, checking, retrieving and publishing data concerning tribal people of Northern Thailand and contiguous areas. Building and equipment facilities are to be developed into a reference center with in-house study facilities for use by scholars and concerned government and nongovernment agencies and personnel. It is hoped to establish regular communication with those parties who can provide the raw data or who will wish to use the processed data. [italics added]

 

Gathering raw data, "data storage," and "data retrieval" appear to be central to the concerns of the Tribal Data Center, for the form letter to each social scientist—personally addressed—goes on to say: ^[30]

We understand that in the course of your work you may be in a position either to supply us with raw data concerning tribal communities, to utilize the processed data, or to give us technical advice as to systems of data collection and processing…. We need such up-to-date information as the location of tribal villages, the number and ethnic identity of the inhabitants, their migratory history, and so on. [italics added]

 

The type of raw data these seekers after information hoped to collect is made evident by a dummy "Proposal for Village Data Card," which was circulated along with the invitation and other materials emanating from Chiang Mai. Few of the entry spaces on the card concern the kind of information normally collected by anthropologists or data which could be kept anonymous. The nineteen entry spaces on the card request, for example, exact village location and map coordinates; names of the village headman and other influentials: years of residence in situ and place and duration of residence elsewhere; names, racial affiliation, and occupations of occasional residents in the village; and weapons on hand.

 

It is hardly conceivable that participants in the Consultants' Meeting were unaware of the plainclothesmen in their midst, and thus unable to sense the politics of the occasion. It is possible but hardly plausible that members of the conference on shifting cultivation ignored the fact that knowledge of such techniques had allowed aerial surveillance to distinguish ethnic populations from the air, during the Malayan insurgency...."

continue reading at from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10763

****

And in fairness, here is the late Peter Hinton (a director of the Tribal Research Centre, cited often by Lewis) with his final evaluation of the whole fiasco.  Read closely, make up your own mind:

 

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2472/is_2_13/ai_90251909    The 'Thailand controversy' revisited - anthropologists as spies

Australian Journal of Anthropology, The, August, 2002 by Peter Hinton

 

"The episode which has become known as the 'Thailand controversy' and which fractured the anthropological communities of Australia and the United States in the early 1970s, centred on the role of anthropologists in mainland Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. It was alleged that anthropologists who worked there had supplied information to Thai and US military intelligence agencies about the peoples of contested areas, who were almost invariably peasant and tribal smallholders; some anthropologists, it was claimed, had gone further by assisting the establishment of local institutions which would provide a sustained flow of such information. Three members of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, W.R. Geddes (who held the Chair), and Douglas Miles and I (who were then postgraduate students), were alleged to be in this category: we had all worked for the Tribal Research Centre (TRC), an agency of the Royal Thai Government's Department of Public Welfare, which was established on the campus of Chiang Mai University in 1965....."