Montgomery McFate
| Montgomery McFate | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mitzy Carlough January 8, 1966 Sausalito, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Anthropology |
| Institutions |
United States Navy Naval War College, Minerva Chair, 2011– United States Army Human Terrain System, Senior Social Scientist, 2007–2010 United States Institute of Peace 2006–2007 Office of Naval Research RAND Corporation |
| Alma mater |
Harvard Law School (JD, 1997) Yale University (PhD, Anthropology, 1994) University of California, Berkeley (BA, Anthropology) |
| Known for | Study of counterinsurgency and insurgent populations, anthropology of warfare |
Montgomery McFate (also known as Montgomery Sapone and nicknamed Mitzy; born January 8, 1966) is a cultural anthropologist, a defense and national security analyst, and former Science Advisor to the United States Army Human Terrain System program. As of 2011, she holds the Minerva Chair (Strategic Research) at the U.S. Naval War College.
McFate was raised in the houseboat community in Sausalito, California, at the time a "hippie" community. Her parents were artists and associates with such figures as Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. She grew up in poverty, living on a converted barge with no plumbing. In high school, McFate spent much of her time in the burgeoning early-1980s San Francisco punk scene, but at the same time, was a strong student with an academic focus, earning numerous scholarship that helped put her through college. During this time, McFate was a close friend of Cintra Wilson, and the character Lorna in her novel Colors Insulting to Nature is largely based on the young McFate.
She went on to study anthropology at UC Berkeley and as a graduate student at Yale University. McFate developed an interest in the conflict studies and the culture of insurgent groups, and did her doctoral dissertation on Irish Republican social networks and cultural narratives and the role that these played in maintaining the Irish Republican Army insurgency. As part of this research process, she spent several years living among IRA supporters and later among British counterinsurgents. After earning her PhD in Anthropology in 1994, McFate went on to study law at Harvard Law School, earning a Juris Doctor in 1997.
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