Research Interests

David’s broader scholarly interests include U.S. foreign and military policy, militarization and U.S. empire, forced displacement and migration, human rights, gentrification, indigenous peoples, race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality, poverty and inequality, the Indian Ocean, urban anthropology, cities and urban development, ethnography and writing ethnography for non-academic audiences, and public anthropology.  He is a founding member of the National Project on U.S. Military Bases, which seeks to reduce the number of U.S. bases abroad.  He is a steering committee member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

• 2005-2006  Dissertation Year Fellowship, Graduate Center, City University of New York.
• 2003  Mellon Fellow in Security Studies, Inter-University Consortium on Security and Humanitarian Action, Ralph Bunche Institute, Graduate Center, CUNY.
• 2000-2004  Robert Gilleece Fellowship, Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Professional Presentations

• 2008  Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia. AAA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Nov 20.
• 2008  Development & Destruction in the Indian Ocean: History of the Chagossians. “The Fate of the Chagossians,” VU University, Amsterdam, Aug 22.
• 2008  The Right to Return: The Secret History of Exile and Empire on Diego Garcia.  Invited lecture, Colby College, Apr 14.
• 2008  Paradise Stolen: Expulsion and the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia. Elliott School, George Washington University, Feb 15.
• 2007  Anthropologists Find another Way in the War on Terror. Washington Association of Practicing Anthropologists, Nov 13.
• 2007  Making Anthropology a Tool for Progressive Social Change. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, Oct 26-27.
• 2007  The Agents of Forgetting: The Expulsion of the People of Diego Garcia. Forgotten Conflicts: Permanent Catastrophes, Colgate U., Apr 13-14.
• 2007  On Structural Forces and the Agents of Policy. Ethnographies of Foreign Policy, Watson Institute, Brown University, Mar 22-23.
• 2006  “Who Responsible?”: Cause & Prevention in Involuntary Displacement & the Question of “Environmental Refugees.” UNFPA, Marrakech, May 11.
• 2001  Development or Displacement?: The Brooklyn Academy of Music & Gentrification in Fort Greene. Gotham History Festival, CUNY, Oct 7.

Films/Documentaries

•  2008  The Struggle: Race and the Presidential Election. October 27.
• 2008  What Lies Beneath: Uncensored Views about Obama. October 20.
• 2007  CultureTube Segment 1: Human Terrain System and War In Iraq.

Selected Publications

• 2009  Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• 2009  Britain's Own Guantánamo. The Guardian (London), July 28. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/28/diego-garcia-cia-rendition-torture.
• 2009  Too Many Overseas Bases. Foreign Policy in Focus, February 25. Electronic document, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5903
• 2009  Proposals for a Humanpolitik: Building a New Human-Centered Foreign Policy. In The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual. Network of Concerned Anthropologists Steering Committee, eds. Pp. 153-169. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
• 2008  “Give Us Back Diego”: Unity and Division over a Base in the Indian Ocean. With Laura Jeffery. In The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle against U.S. Military Posts. Catherine A. Lutz, ed. London: Pluto Books/TNI.
• 2008  “We All Must Have the Same Treatment”: Calculating the Damages of Human Rights Abuses for the People of Diego Garcia. With Philip Harvey and S. Wojciech Sokolowski. In Waging War, Making Peace—Reparations and Human Rights. Barbara Rose Johnston and Susan Slyomovics, eds. Pp. 132-151. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
• 2008  Taking on Empires: Reparations, the Right of Return, and the People of Diego Garcia. Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics, and Society 10(4):327-343.
• Homesick for Camp Justice. Mother Jones online, August 22. Electronic document, http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/09/camp-justice-military-bases.html
• 2008  The Other Guantánamo. Foreign Policy in Focus, April 3. Electronic document, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/ 5120.
• 2007  Enabling the Kill Chain. Chronicle of Higher Education, November 30: B9-10.
• 2007  Island of Injustice: The U.S. Has a Moral Duty to the People of Diego Garcia. The Washington Post, January 2: A17. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100698_pf.html
• 2003  Billions for Brooklyn—No Questions Asked: The Borough’s New Power Brokers. The Brooklyn Rail, Winter: 2-3. [3^rd Place, New York City Independent Press Awards.]

Grants and Sponsored Research

• John F. Kennedy Research Grant, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, MA.
• 2004  Grant-in-Aid of Research, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, TX.
• 2004  Research Travel Grant, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, MI [declined].

Media Appearances

• 2009  The Tale of Diego Garcia. The World, PRI/BBC/WGBH, May 28.
• 2009  The Untold Story of Diego Garcia. PM, Radio Australia, May 19.
• 2009  Island of Shame [interview and excerpt from the book]. Dispatches, Candadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 11/17 [scroll down the page for the episode].
• 2008  Radio Netherlands.
• 2008  Fox Special Report with Britt Hume, Fox News Network, September 8, 6:00 p.m. EST. Interview clip.
• 2008  The Kojo Nnamdi Show, WAMU 88.5 FM, “Social Science and the Pentagon,” August 6. Guest.
• 2008  Washington Post, “Military’s Social Science Grants Raise Alarm,” Maria Glod, August 3, p. A5. Quoted.
• 2007  Inside HigherEd, “Questions, Anger and Dissent on Ethics Study,” Scott Jaschik, November 30. Quoted.
• 2007  The Wide Angle, Newstalk Radio Ireland, Dublin, Ireland, October 21. Interviewed.
• 2007  CultureTube Segment 1: Human Terrain System and War In Iraq. Interviewed. 
• 2007  Time, “Postcard: Diego Garcia,” Massimo Calabresi, September 13. Quoted.

Professional Services

• 2001-present  Expert witness. Research for US and UK lawsuits brought for Chagossians by attorneys Michael Tigar and Richard Gifford (London).