A third researcher involved with the Pentagon’s controversial use of anthropologists in Afghanistan and Iraq has died.

‘Human Terrain’ researcher Paula Loyd was burned in an attack last year and her colleague Don Ayala is currently charged with murder for allegedly killing her attacker.

“Paula Loyd, 36, a BAE Systems social scientist, died January 7 at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. Loyd, of San Antonio, was severely injured November 4, 2008, in an unprovoked attack in Afghanistan,” says BAE Systems, Loyd’s employer, in a statement issued last week.

“At the time of her injury, she was supporting the U.S. Army’s 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, as part of the Human Terrain System (HTS) program.”

An unnamed Human Terrain employee told Wired, “Paula dearly loved Afghanistan — it showed in the way her face lit up whenever she spoke of it. In the field, her work was stellar, and more than that, she was deeply kind, too. We’ll miss her terribly.”

It does not look like this incident, or other controversies, is deterring the military from these programmes though. Wired also notes that “it looks like the human terrain teams — or something very much like them — are coming to Africa”.

In an editorial published in December, Nature said:

The US Department of Defense’s Human Terrain System, an attempt to have social sciences inform military decision-making, is failing on every level.

In theory, it is a good idea. The Human Terrain System aims to embed anthropologists and other social scientists in military units in Iraq and Afghanistan to help improve understanding of local cultures and thus relieve tensions between civilians and soldiers. In practice, however, it has been a disaster.

More

Loyd, 36, remembered for strong-natured will – SA Express-News

The Unreported Death of Staff Sgt. Paula Loyd of the Human Terrain System: Third Researcher to Die – Open Anthropology