David Price, Ph.D.
College of Arts and Sciences Chair
Professor, Sociology
Professor, Anthropology
- dprice@stmartin.edu
- 360-438-4295
Old Main 309
5000 Abbey Way SE
Lacey, WA 98503
Education
Ph.D., University of Florida
A.M., University of Chicago
B.A., The Evergreen State College
Background
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Price studied anthropology and intellectual history as an undergraduate at the Evergreen State College. He received his A.M. from the University of Chicago, and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Florida, studying under anthropologist Marvin Harris and conducting field research on the ancient and contemporary irrigation systems of the Egyptian Fayoum. He has conducted cultural anthropological and archaeological fieldwork and research in the United States and Palestine, Egypt and Yemen.
Scholarly activities
David Price is the author of Atlas of World Cultures: A Geographical Guide to Ethnographic Literature (Sage, 1989). David has published articles in The Nation, CounterPunch, Identities, Critique of Anthropology, Anthropological Quarterly, Anthropology Today, Anthropology News, American Anthropologist, Human Organization, Science & Society, Journal of Anthropological Research (and elsewhere) using documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to establish various covert relationships between American anthropologists and military and intelligence agencies. He is a founding member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.
During the last decade he has served on several American Anthropological Associations commissions and task forces dealing with political and ethical issues facing the association, including the Ad Hoc Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security & Intelligence Communities (2006-2009) and the Ad Hoc Ethics Sub-Committee Task Force (2008-2011), which wrote the revised code of ethics recently adopted by the association.
He is writing a three volume series of books using the Freedom of Information Act and archival sources to examine American anthropologists' interactions with intelligence agencies. His Book, Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Persecution of Activist Anthropologists (Duke University Press, 2004) uses 30,000 pages of FBI documents to examine governmental attempts to suppress academic freedom. Archaeological Intelligence: The use and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War (in press, 2008, Duke) documents anthropological contributions to the Second World War. A third volume, Dual Use Anthropology: Cold War Anthropologists and the CIA will explore anthropologists' interactions with the CIA and the Pentagon during the Cold War. His most recent book is Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the National Security State (CounterPunch, 2011),