Rethinking Old Maps
Alexander B. Murphy, Professor, Geography
 We live in a complex world.” A more banal statement would be hard to formulate in this day and age. Yet for all the lip service paid to the notion, much of the American policy and media elite continue out of habit to view the world through a simplistic prism, a prism that is utterly at odds with the complexity that determines today’s geopolitical reality.
That prism is the map that hangs on the walls of our homes, our classrooms, and even our foreign policy institutes: the map showing the 200-odd countries of the world. And our continued unthinking use of that map is now downright dangerous, as the reaction to the September 11 atrocities demonstrates.
Consider the oft-heard comparisons with Pearl Harbor and the notion that we are again at war. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, there was no question what that meant: war with Japan — and by extension Germany and its European allies.
During the Cold War era, we didn’t just think in terms of the map of states, of course. There was a clear bi-polar geopolitical order that overlay the map of states, but it operated in and through the state system. From both a Soviet and an American perspective, the fundamental policy question was whether states were for or against “us,” and policy was shaped by its likely impacts on state allegiance to one side or the other.
Over the past few decades, however, it has become increasingly clear that the map of states is not the only map of importance. Other maps clearly matter — maps of ethnicity, maps of wealth and poverty, maps of the flow of goods and people. The importance of such alternative maps was made startlingly clear in the aftermath of the break-up of the communist bloc in Europe and then the Soviet Union. Many people — including self-proclaimed experts — seemed surprised by the ethnic diversity of the Soviet Union, the depth of ties between the Baltic States and parts of Scandinavia, interregional antagonisms in Eastern European states, and much more. All of this was easy to ignore when, even in our own educational system, we were more concerned with understanding political alignments than with the geographical complexity of the planet.
Especially in light of the current political situation, that complexity can no longer be ignored.
The desire for justice in the wake of the attack on New York City and Washington, DC — together with the hold that the old geopolitical order still has on our imaginations — makes it tempting to cast Afghanistan as the enemy. Yet what is Afghanistan? A product of a nineteenth-century geopolitical compromise between Russia and Great Britain that is made up of many different peoples — Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Hazaras to name just a few.
So our present world is not just one in which communication and trade networks are not reducible to the map of states; it is one in which the state itself can be a hollow concept…
Rejecting Easy Answers
Marion Goldman, Professor, Sociology of Religion
Since the events of September 11th, students in my classes in the sociology of religion have asked many questions about the relationships of spirituality and violence. They have discussed Islamic, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalisms, observing differences and similarities among all three religious traditions.
Some students draw parallels between the terrible events at the World Trade Center and the equally awful but often unobserved terrorism against abortion clinics and the health professionals working in them in the USA. These upper division students reject easy answers to complicated questions, and the demonization of any group. Instead they are concerned with the global processes involving religion and religious activities.
Addressing Student Interest
Ronald B. Mitchell, Associate Professor, International Politics
 The events of September 11th have led to a significant shift in how political scientists think about international relations, American politics, and comparative politics. It has caused many of the faculty at the University of Oregon to alter both the ways they teach these subjects and the responses of students to the subjects they teach.
Consider the basic facts of September 11th. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were undertaken by terrorists who were not American nationals, who were motivated by their interpretations of both religious principles and processes and events usually referred to as globalization, who were not acting on behalf of any nation-state, who used “technologies” readily available throughout the world.
In the field of international relations, these facts have caused most scholars to pay far more attention to the role of religion in international affairs, highlighting arguments made earlier in the decade by Samuel Huntington that the post-Cold War world will be characterized, at least in part, by a “clash of civilizations.” The events have also induced greater caution with respect to traditional claims that it is nation-states rather than non-state actors that play the central roles in international events. The response of the United States and other governments to September 11th, especially those likely once the war in Afghanistan is concluded, demonstrate an increasing ability to discriminate between attacking the governments of terrorist states and attacking terrorists who may reside in a particular state. The events also provide support to claims that have been made for over two decades that the security of a state involves many aspects beyond — and that cannot be provided for exclusively by — military security.
In the field of American politics, the events of September 11th have both highlighted and changed traditional patterns of American politics surrounding race, ethnicity, religion, and immigration. It has simultaneously caused scholars to re-think understandings of how Americans manage the tradeoffs between freedom and security, understand the reasons for and costs of protecting civil rights, and respond to the many racial, ethnic, and religious differences that exist in American society.
In the field of comparative politics, the attacks have helped draw attention to differentials in the power many foreign governments have over the citizens (and non-citizens) who reside within their borders, in the de facto influence that non-citizens can have over governmental policy in such states, and the different roles of religion and culture in the politics of other states. Although these and related issues are not “news” to professional scholars of comparative politics, the events of September 11th have increased both the interest in and the understanding of these insights by students.
Many classes in the Political Science department have been adapted so that these issues and student interest in these issues can be addressed. From introductory courses to upper level courses, syllabi have been reshaped to raise the importance of elements that already were discussed and to add components that directly address both new understandings and new student interest in elements of international relations.
Making the Strange Familiar
Diane Baxter, Assistant Professor, Cultural Anthropology
Along with shock, anger, fear, and grief, September 11 brought for many people this response: how could they do something so terrible to us? This is, of course, an understandable immediate reaction to a horrendous event, but begs many important questions. Who, for example, is they? Is it all Middle Easterners? Just men? Only Saudis? Is it all Muslims or just Middle Eastern Muslims? Whoever “they” are, why is their “culture” so violent? So unreasonable, even, perhaps, so evil? So unlike “ours?”
Questions that examine cultures and individuals’ relationship to culture are the bread and butter of Cultural Anthropology. In most introductory courses, professors attempt to impress students with the idea of cultural relativity and an appreciation for cultures, at least in some ways, unlike their own. In my courses, I’m eager to show the diversity within cultures and the multiple ways in which individuals identify with, accept, and resist their society’s norms, dictates, and values. As anthropologist, Melford Spiro, was fond of saying, one of my goals is to “make the strange familiar.” Breaking down unfortunate and divisive barriers — that is, negative stereotypes of “exotic others” — is always a part of my course objectives.
After September 11, it became even more important and so this fall, along with my GTF’s, I engaged students in dialogues that focused on the way we view ourselves, the diversity of our cultures (not all students come from the same “culture”), and those of “others.” Can we call a culture evil? And, if so, why can’t others call us evil? Do human beings share a common human nature or not? Can we explain terrorism more reasonably by looking at geopolitics, economics, political psychology, rather than saying, “It’s just their culture?” While these are issues that are generally a part of my introductory courses, the events of September 11 made them immediate, emotional, and intense.
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