Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency conference report, numbered RTT 95-10039 and dated October 1995, presents the proceedings of a conference held 30 September to 1 October 1993. The CIA's Geographic Resources Division sponsored the conference. In it, academic geographers, anthropologists and US Government officials examined ethnic conflict by region, covering Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and South Asia. The report also discusses what these conflicts mean for US policy. It does not deal with UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Anderson”6 pages
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268 l consumerism and, especially,'American products; the demise of traditional institutions, including political ideology; and the rise of a “here and now” mentality that stresses individualism, the appearance of wealth, and a veneer of globalism in foods, clothing, music, and lifestyles. Secularization inn the rise leads to a decline in traditional institutions, be they family and community, fOl'l'Ilfll political parties, the role of the church, the functions of schools, or the importance of collective memories. ' Sports and Society: The New Ball Game One of the emerging forms of social identity in many countries is sports. Sports not'only represent outlets for a public’s need for entertainment but also some- thing deeper about society’s need for identity and rep- resentation. What started out during pretelevision days as teams of athletes who were paid to entertain local or regional audiences has now changed into national teams that somehow stand for and represent a city, a region, or even the state itself, As audiences follow favorite teams, more and more teams have been cre- ated, further increasing local identity, regionalism, and national pride-—all in the name of “friendly” competi- tion. Nevertheless, more than one local conflict has emerged between fans of one lnational team fighting fans of another. The political geographer or policy consultant interested in understanding the seculariza- tion of a society would be wise to ferret out the role sports play in the political identity of a group or soci- ety. Land: Yours or Mine 4 Land or territory was historically associated with the definition of the state. This raison d’etre was impor- tant in conveying to those within the state that certain spaces gave the state and people identity. Those spaces were to be protected from outsiders, should they decide to enter. The past several centuries of Europeanizing the world conveys strongly the impor- tance of land, territory, ownership, governance, and protection. Those spaces “on the ground” and on the map further gave legitimacy to strongly held views about ownership, symbolism, and identity. While many of the bounded spaces on the planet may seem static, there are dynamics linked to some spaces; That dynamism is associated with groups within those defined spaces who want their own spaces; in short, their own places to govern themselves. Those who support self-determination claim that they cannot be represented by majority populations in the bounded spaces who have little interest in minority group con- cerns. Those minorities may be religious, ethnic, or linguistic. These “stateless” peoples believe that they have a legal claim to govem themselves; in some cases, they present historical claims to spaces that were previously taken from them by outsiders. It is not only the ten'itory that is in question but also what is in and on that land. The land may contain places of historical settlements, ceremonial and burial grounds, and sites of sacred rivers, mountains, or for- ests. These places may be an important part of the unwritten histories of minority and disenfranchised groups. The importance of land is not to be dimin- ished as we approach the next century. It seems very likely that there will be emerging claims and counter- claims to land and water spaces by competing groups now living in the same spaces. National and interna- tional courts seem likely to be involved in the litiga- tion efforts by unrepresented and underrepresented groups. Information and Communication Whether scholars and govemment offices and officers are or will be able to understand the role of the United States in the world community of states during the next few decades rests in large part on how much they understand about information and communications. These two areas of postindustrial society were not key 20 to 40 years ago but are becoming more important each day. In the same way that leaders and practitio- ners will need to know the role of environment, reli- gion, and secularization, so they will need to grasp the realities of global information and communication. I have identified several crucial issues that relate to those with interests in ethnicity, conflict, social change, and political decisionmaking: ' The information blizzard. How do we decide what is important and what is not? With the volumes of information that cross our desks, deciding what is most and least important is crucial. One might well expect the information load to increase at least 189 Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 205 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.