United States

The Dobbs decision was shocking if not surprising, particularly in the context of movements to make abortion care accessible elsewhere around the world. In the United States, more than half of states are enforcing or enacting bans and restrictions that are severe and extreme. This is a moment requiring the deeper and broader perspectives of anthropologists working in reproduction. This roundtable features contributors to The Routledge Handbook on Reproduction and Anthropology speaking on how changes in US law and policy are affecting the local communities where they work and the global landscape of reproduction. Drawing from their research, they also discuss sources of insight and inspiration in the continuing struggle for reproductive justice.

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Navigating Reproduction After Dobbs

Truth and Responsibility
“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Many consider anthropology to be a holistic social science dedicated to cross-cultural understanding as a way to reduce bigotry and more fully comprehend “what it means to be human.” Others push against this readily circulated origin story, arguing that “human” remains a highly contested, political category—evident as the presumed set of rights and protections associated with the “human” continue to be stripped away violently in the communities in which some of us live and work. Which violent histories and epistemologies must anthropologists take responsibility for in telling truth(s) about the discipline’s development? How do the dual histories of settler colonialism and slavery continue to influence anthropological thought and practices? In these political times, how can anthropologists throughout the globe work to secure a capacious, progressive vision of the human? How might movements for anti-racism, decoloniality, queer liberation, and healing such as #BlackLivesMatter, #ProtectMaunaKea, and #MeToo push a future anthropology out of the ashes of the anthropological past? Finally, what are the limits and possibilities of the anthropological imagination?

Across subfields, we find truths in patterns of human behavior, language, evolution, and cultural worlds. Industry-positioned anthropologists do this by extending the boundaries of the discipline not as an administrative solution to job shortages but as a source of intervention and knowledge production. Increasingly, anthropologists who make use of the scientific method question how status and identity help to decide which facts come to represent truth. How might quantitative researchers use our methods to identify patterned truths, and what responsibility do we hold in challenging conventional wisdom about these patterns? What responsibility do we have to both our colleagues and larger publics, to push toward increased transparency and ethical grounding in our data collection, analysis, and presentation?

Pedagogy is a key medium for the communication of anthropological truths. Which (and whose) truths are foregrounded in our curricula? What are the possibilities for a liberatory pedagogy in a precarious, “post-truth” era? Conferences, museums, organizing spaces, and classrooms are sites where pedagogy and various forms of communication can help us interrogate the performativity of truth. How might anthropologists conceive of truth performances? Might visual, aural, and choreographic performances during AAA sessions offer anthropologists alternative genres for truth-telling and truth-making that provoke discussions about responsibility?

In accordance with the urgency of the year’s theme, the questions posed in this call for papers do not have easy answers. The hope is that those who submit proposals will take up these questions and engage in collective thinking and imagining about the truths we hold, the truths we challenge, and the responsibilities we bear in co-creating a free and more equitable world. All panel proposals should have a statement about how the panel has incorporated the goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and/or analysis of power.

Executive Session proposals have already been selected and speak directly to the theme “Truth and Responsibility.” To practice the critical reflexivity this call for papers invites, we asked that Executive Session submissions explicitly address the diversity of session participants, such as organizational/institutional affiliation, career stage, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class, religion, national identity, and gender. Proposals for Executive Sessions that demonstrated a commitment to equity and inclusion and/or a clear analysis of power (i.e. anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist, decolonial, anti-ableist, feminist, anti-transphobic, anti-xenophobic, etc) were given priority. We are excited to be in conversation with residents of the Baltimore region and look forward to the discussions, performances, and actions generated by the dynamic group of anthropologists attending the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting.

AAA Annual Meeting 2021

“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

webinar

This informative series covers everything from career advancement and educational development for anthropologists to academic freedom and newsworthy events from around the world.

Show Me an Anthropologist and I'll Show You a Librarian

Historical artifacts only have meaning because of the stories we tell through and about them.

What kinds of stories emerge from the artifacts found in the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum? These storylines weave together artifacts, documentary film, and online storytelling. We take objects donated to the museum, explore their meaning for donors, and then interweave these stories with those relating to other Museum objects. Can these extended storylines become launching points for conversations about the nature of work, the value of community, and what it means to be an American? Can they help us reimagine our collective futures?

The Stories We Tell — The Southeast Chicago Archive & Storytelling Project

Weaving together different stories of music and migration, the film documents the history of Rembetika music or the Greek blues. A music born of exile and the streets and developing its roots from the mass migration of people in the early twentieth century, the film gives the viewer a wealth of experiences that are often left out of the chronicles of history. The film touches on themes of loss, history, music, and family. 

MY REMBETIKA BLUES: Film screening and conversation with Mary Zournazi and Christopher C. King

How can anthropological expertise on sex and gender help us better understand the complexities of the world around us, particularly in the face of increasing legislation targeting transgender people and efforts at equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)? This panel discussion–featuring scholars from all four fields of anthropology–will delve deeply into sex and gender as categories, drawing on things like cross-cultural approaches, biological studies, and feminist theory. 

Sex is Complex: Discussing Sex and Gender Across Anthropology

As learners return to campus after experiencing considerable trauma from a racialized pandemic, we must collectively adapt our pedagogical practices and teaching methods to reach and support them "where they are." Framing authentic learning via inclusive teaching methods entails approaching teaching as a dynamic and responsive process. Rather than thinking of inclusion or accessibility as something that can be addressed as an after-the-fact consideration, inclusive teaching demands that instructors challenge themselves to center student needs throughout their pedological design process. This presentation will provide strategies and tips for applying an inclusive design approach to pedagogical innovation and practice.

Teaching in Times of Crisis – Creating an Authentic and Inclusive Pedagogy

This webinar brings together scholars involved in the World Anthropologies movement to discuss the current state of this vital project with global scope. Starting with the recognition that the building of anthropological knowledge is mainly constrained both by imperial/colonial structures and the default frame of the nation-state, the session will explore methods of doing anthropology otherwise. As an AAA sponsored event, the session will focus in particular on the role of the US and the AAA. We will reflect on the extent to which USian anthropology positions itself as an (or even sometimes the!) “anthropology without culture”, as well as on how USian institutions and structures produce a USian anthropology. Within the context of efforts from within the AAA and other national or multinational bodies (notably the World Council of Anthropological Associations) and supranational bodies (notably the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences), we will discuss the struggle to decenter knowledge production from a place of privilege and domination. We will then consider how the World Anthro movement does or could build bridges with anthropologies that traverse, get around, subvert, or transcend “national” boundaries, and in particular the hegemony of the US, the AAA, and of English, and with movements that seek to queer anthropology, to decolonize it, to crip it, or to burn it down.

World Anthropologies: Building Disciplinary Bridges and Upending Hierarchies of Knowledge

This panel discusses how digital anthropologists can use data science to help us better understand people and communities in the “Phygital” world, and why this growing field is a critical “Job of the Future” across the public and private sector. This panel discussion–featuring experts from digital anthropology, data science, journalism, social media and tech –will delve deeply into how this field will play a role in AI, combat online extremism and violence and support a more equal and ethical digital future. Non-anthropologists and anthropologists alike are warmly welcome!

**Presenters**

* Cristian Huepe, Co-director, Social Listening Lab (SoL-UC), Universidad Católica de Chile.
* Himanshu Panday, Co-founder, Dignity in Difference
* Matt Artz, Founder of Azimuth Labs
* Christine Burke, VP Cultural Insights, TelmarHelixa

**Moderator**

Katie Hillier, Chief Digital Anthropologist, Liiv Center

The Job of the Future: Digital Anthropology Meets Data Science

Scholars of intersectional identities face unique challenges in their departments including disproportionate workloads, excessive service assignments, and additional mentorship obligations. Patricia A. Matthew, an English department faculty member at Montclair State University, describes these extra commitments as “invisible labor” - because institutions do not value this labor with the currency they typically use to reward faculty work: reappointment, tenure, and promotion. This webinar session, hosted by SSRC PROGRESS, is structured around a participant-led discussion of two case studies, with two discussion facilitators to support a meaningful dialogue on issues of department climate and academic workload/career advancement. The ultimate goal of this session is to have an open discussion of both challenges and successes in employing DEI interventions in anthropology departments.

PROGRESS is an NSF ADVANCE adaptation grant program that addresses organizational policies and procedures related to advisory board formation, peer review, and fellowship/awards conferment to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion measures are meaningful and effective. Housed within the Social Science Research Council, PROGRESS partners with five disciplinary associations - the American Anthropological Association, the American Economic Association, the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, and the American Sociological Association.

Presenters

* Veronica Zepeda, Program Director, Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network - Social Science Research Council
* Fred Palm, VP of Administration and Operations, P.I. of PROGRESS - Social Science Research Council

Department Climate and Academic Workload in Anthropology Departments

A thought-provoking webinar on what it means to decolonize anthropology in different contexts around the world. This event brings together Dr. Gretchen Stolte, Dr. Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, and Dr. Carolyn Rouse, contributors of the American Ethnologist special forum, “Decolonizing Anthropology: Global Perspectives”, to explore the past, present, and future of anthropology. This discussion, moderated by Dr. Faye Ginsburg, will touch on everything from the decolonizing politics of citation, public anthropology, the historical relationship between anthropology and colonial power in different parts of the world, and the degree to which anthropology provided and provides the tools to resist.
 
**Panelists**
 
 Dr. Gretchen Stolte, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia
 Dr. Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, Departamento de Estudios Culturales, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), Departamento de Antropologia (emeritus), Universidade de Brasília
 Dr. Carolyn Rouse, Department of Anthropology, Princeton University
 **Moderator**
 
Dr. Faye Ginsburg, Department of Anthropology, New York University

Discussing ‘Decolonizing Anthropology: Global Perspectives'

Join Michael Wesch and Elisa (EJ) Sobo for an exciting conversation on how to leverage generative AI for better teaching and learning! Together, they delved into the challenges presented by large language models and generative AI technologies, offering not only concrete suggestions for classroom practice but also timely reflections on the purpose of higher education.

"In meeting this new technology with creativity and purpose, we can reorient education’s compass needle back toward process as opposed to product – toward thinking about as opposed to merely recounting what others have said" – and as we do, we can bolster efforts to increase equity in higher education too: "The adaptations we create, not ChatGPT, could be the real revolution" (Sobo, 2023, 1). By guiding students to apply generative AI in innovative classroom activities and projects, we can empower our students to use this technology as a practical tool for inquiry and discovery while also interrogating its potential sociocultural impacts *(Sobo, E. (2023). Could ChatGPT Prompt a New Golden Age in Higher Education? Teaching and Learning Anthropology, 6(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/T36160114)*



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