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PRE-DEPLOYMENT TRAINING - LESSONS LEARNED

THE IMPORTANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL

TRAINING IN THE PRE-DEPLOYMENT PHASE

cultural awareness and perception to problems and benefits, and can
By Desirée Pangerc
is very strong: people see, evalua- be able to use cultural diversity to
te, interpret, and behave in many seek alternatives or to bring new
During the pre-deployment pha-
se, an anthropological training to different ways. Misunderstandings, solutions. As to situational aware-
military and police operators and failures, and even risks arise when ness, this is the perception of the
to the civilians is necessary, in or- the field operator uses his culture, elements that are around by under-
der to make them able to inte- symbols, and meanings to analyze standing what the situation is, how
ract with all the social actors on a different society and its Weltan- the situation can suddenly change,
the field Missions, especially with schauung, that is the vision of the and what needs to be done to ad-
the local people. To reach this world. Consequently, at this so-cal- dress the situation. Obviously, du-
goal, the peacekeeping personnel led synergistic stage the operators ring the pre-deployment phase,
should show a good level of cul- realize that cultural differences can situational awareness can be pre-
tural awareness and know what lead – as above-mentioned – both sented by the anthropologist only
situational awareness is to be well
prepared once deployed.Anthro-
pology provides the operators a
deep knowledge of “[…] that com-
plex whole which includes knowle-
dge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, cu-
stoms, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by [a human]
as a member of society.” To know
and to respect the others is the
first step to gain consensus, and
give a positive perception about
the presence of the peacekeeping
personnel in the area to the local
social groups. So the link between

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