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This article explores the causes of the epistemological crisis that gave rise to conspiracy theories which culminated in large swathes of the U.S. population refusing to accept the outcome of a democratic election. An epistemological crisis is defined by a blurring of facts and falsehoods to the degree that blatant and obvious propaganda holds sway over large segments of the population, resulting in truth decay. We provide an analysis of the propaganda themes collected and identified by the Computational Propaganda Project from April through July of 2020 that demonstrate their prevalence in American social media platforms. We then show how education may limit propaganda's deleterious effects. We approach our research in an interdisciplinary way from the fields of education and cultural anthropology and so contribute an angle to the current conversations about education in a democratic society that has not been the primary focus of educational thought.

The proficiency in vernacular has long been a methodological ethos pervasive among field researchers and--despite new dynamics of fieldwork--still overshadows discussions related to collaboration with translators and interpreters, which are either marginalized or hidden within the category of a 'research assistant'. The purpose of this study is to take a step beyond anecdotal evidence and explore trends in language proficiency and use of translation services among US based field researchers who had conducted international or domestic studies in an area where a language other than English was present. We conducted the largest-to-date survey on the subject and analyzed 913 responses from faculty at sociology and anthropology programs in the United States. We documented their global fieldwork activity and found only limited proficiency in field languages accompanied by a proliferation of reliance on translators and interpreters, not matching any methodological discussion present in the textbooks and other scholarly sources. We indicate disparities in the use of vernacular and translation services in the post-colonial societies and point out related ethical and methodological concerns. Furthermore, we analyze the researchers' decision-making processes and their general perspectives on the importance of vernacular's knowledge and opinions on the admissibility of translators in the fieldwork.

Despite some recent criticism, the idea of language interpreting in anthropological (among others) field research seems still firmly rooted in classical anthropology where the interpreter was an obstacle and necessary evil rather than aid. We surveyed anthropologists conducting field research in Arab League countries to describe their practices and give them voice in the matter. We found that while a share of anthropologists appreciates interpreters' input, an equally striking number does not even recognize they used one. We discuss practices of having team members and local officials working as courtesy interpreters and its effect on ethics, safety and validity of data collection.

In recent decades the field of anthropology has been characterized as sharply divided between proscience and antiscience factions. The aim of this study is to empirically evaluate that characterization. We survey anthropologists in graduate programs in the United States regarding their views of science and advocacy, moral and epistemic relativism, and the merits of evolutionary biological explanations. We examine anthropologists' views in concert with their varying appraisals of major controversies in the discipline (Chagnon/Tierney, Mead/Freeman, and Menchú/Stoll). We find that disciplinary specialization and especially gender and political orientation are significant predictors of anthropologists' views. We interpret our findings through the lens of an intuitionist social psychology that helps explain the dynamics of such controversies as well as ongoing ideological divisions in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We analysed the extent to which violent, organised crime has disrupted anthropological research in Mexico and Central America by conducting a survey of anthropologists who work in the region. We found that although anthropologists will continue research in regions they perceive to have the socio-economic characteristics of a failed state they are far less inclined to work in areas that they perceive as excessively violent. We continue with examination of the state failure and feudalisation that are affecting the region. We conclude that in the feudal zones, the state has lost its comparative advantage in the use of force and that state intrusion into these areas increases armed collective violence in a manner similar to that described in the literature on warfare in tribal zones. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines US Army psychological operations (PsyOp) as practiced during the waning years of the Cold War in Latin America. Certain themes, especially legitimacy, in-group/out-group, and safety/fear are demonstrated to be recurrent in regional PsyOp campaigns, largely because they seem to activate rich inference systems in the human brain. Yet anthropologists and other scholars of Latin America have paid little attention to military PsyOp. Despite our natural susceptibilities, we can best evaluate propaganda (and other claims to knowledge) by following the advice of Karl Popper: competing theories, including politically loaded ones, should always be explanatory and subject to criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]