Catherine Lutz

Catherine Lutz is an American anthropologist and Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at Brown University. She is also a director of the Watson Institute's Costs of War study, an attempt to calculate the financial costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Lutz received a BA in sociology and anthropology from Swarthmore College in 1974. She then received a PhD in social anthropology from Harvard University in 1980.

She served as president of the American Ethnological Society from 2001 to 2005. She is a founder of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.

In April 2013, Lutz was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to “write a book on the contemporary moralities of American war" that will include a nationwide sample of interviews in order to “understand what popular histories and evaluations of the post-9/11 wars are emerging in a diverse range of communities.”

Lutz’s primary interest is military, war, and society. Following are two summaries in which she explicates her views. One from April 11, 2008, on Antiwar Radio:

This interview discussed the United States’ presence in Iraq and other countries throughout the world. Lutz states that there are over seven hundred official US military bases throughout the world. These permanent bases are usually established after wars: Germany, Japan, Italy, and Korea to name a few. The estimated cost to maintain these bases is 140 billion dollars. Not only are these bases extremely expensive, but they also create anti-American feelings from the host population of the countries. According to Lutz, some of these bases, like in the Philippines, “dance with dictators” in the fact that the US turns a blind eye in order to have a base in the country. Sometimes the bases supported arms deals within these countries that had antidemocratic effects. Lutz also points out the fact that many U.S. companies benefit in the construction and maintenance of these oversea bases.

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