Author Description

In Advancing SOF Cultural Engagement: The Malinowski Model fora Qualitative Approach, Robert Greene Sands and Darby Arakelian propose a special operations relevant model for engagingpopulations, illuminating their worldviews and values, appreciating their interests, and translating significant social, cultural, andpolitical information into operational analysis. Their objectivesare to introduce the core concepts, the base vocabulary, and thefoundational skills in anthropology and sociology necessary forimproving the human aspects core competency. While GreeneSands and Arakelian do not expect SOF to become anthropologists, they assert that Malinowski's population-centric researchmethods are desperately needed to make sense of contemporaryhuman aspects of military operations.