journals – Savage Minds

What a cooperative proposal means for the AAA

Rex — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 06:13:02 +0000

Social media was a-twitter (see what I did there?) today with an important statement about the future of anthropology publishing posted at both Cultural Anthropology and in the latest number of HAU. But what precisely is this post about? What are the broader politics that form its context, and what is its point?

The basic idea is this: We have long known that the American Anthropological Association is unable and/or unwilling to innovate on its own. Most of the developments in open access anthropology have happened outside of the AAAs structure. Sure, the AAA has tried various things such as a faux-open access journal and open access book reviews. But its core business model has been to throw in its lot with a large corporate publisher.

Our recent proposal to the AAA marks an important watershed in open access anthropology because it represents something new. Now, open access is not only growing outside of the AAA’s auspices, it is actually feeding back into the AAA itself. Instead of just going its own way, the open access community is now saying to the AAA: “You can’t develop a robust open access business model on your own. But what if we developed one for you? What if we could prove to you that there is a financially sustainable way for you to run your publishing unit? If we build it, will you come?”

My guess is that, no, the AAA will not endorse the model. The AAA has published American Anthropologist for over a hundred years, and their fundamental goal is to make sure that it continues for another hundred years. In the past couple of years the AAA has done a good job of building capacity, but it is still a conservative institution which is very risk averse.

But we can hope. And hopefully the cooperative proposal we have set out will receive lots of pushback from the AAA and people in the publishing industry to tell us that It Cannot Be Done, You Don’t Understand The Numbers, and so forth. This will only lead us to sharpen our argument, gather more data, and make an even stronger case. And — if you don’t mind my saying so — I think the open access movement deserves a lot of kudos of continuing to press its case with an institution that it very easily could have walked away from. In the end, the only way to test the business model is to actually try it, and I hope that someday we can prove to the AAA that our proposals are indeed feasible. If we do not, it will not be for lack of trying on our part.

Déjà Lu: Now, more than ever

Rex — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:22:20 +0000

When Americans like myself say “anthropology” we usually mean “American anthropology” or — even worse — “American cultural anthropology”. But as the pretty much everyone in the world who is not American will tell you, there is a lot more to anthropology than just what Americans do. The World Council of Anthropological Associations is one of the key institutions seeking to raise the profile of the global anthropological scene. One of the key ways they do it is with their open-access journal Déjà Lu, which recently released its third issue. It’s great and you should read something in it now.

Déjà Lu is actually an anthology. Journals from around the planet select one article of their that they wish to feature, and contribute it to Déjà Lu, who then publishes it in open access format. The result is a scrumptious multilingual smorgasbord of anthropological treats.

American journals are heavily represented on Déjà Lu, since they are a large part of world anthropology. But there is a lot else on hand as well and the journal is a great way to discover new pieces to read, as well as new journals to follow, even if you are an ashamed monoglot like me. Suomen Antropologi usually keeps its content locked up pretty tight, but you can download Tim Ingold’s Westermark Lecture (like to PDF). SITES is a Pacific journal I’ve known about for a long time, but I would have missed it’s new issue on whakapapa if it wasn’t for Déjà Lu. And that’s really just the start.

Your interests are probably different than mine, so why don’t you go stroll over the Déjà Lu’s site and see what tickles your fancy?

OA anthropology, at a glance

Matt Thompson — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 15:10:19 +0000

I’m starting a research project on open access publishing in anthropology, specifically on the kinds of metadata different venues use to make their material findable by users. Along the way I’ve collected a running list of English language titles of interest to cultural anthropologists. The original list was started by anthropologi.info but it had a number of broken links and also included moribund journals I am excluding from my research. The anthropologi.info link also lists a number of multilingual journals that I haven’t gotten to yet but am working on currently.

In the meantime, check these out. The following titles have been updated at least once since 2013. Parenthetical notes are included to describe the titles if necessary.

Tons of newly published open anthropology

Rex — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 22:18:16 +0000

When it rains it pours. In the past two days it seems like I’ve been deluged with quality open access anthropology. Perhaps open access is not the right word, since some of them have pretty traditional copyright on them, but the important thing is that they are all free to read, and all deserve to be read. Where to begin?

I mentioned earlier that for many people ontology was a major theme at AAAs. Well now the good folks at Cultural Anthropology have published the papers from the Politics of Ontology Session. Short. Sweet. Ontologytastic. Most of what happens at the AAAs doesn’t live on in any meaningful way, or else is published years afterwards. It’s amazing, frankly, to see such relevant stuff from such high-calibre people get thrown up on the Intarweb.

Speaking of high-calibre, Museum Anthropology Review has published a ginormous double issue on digital repatriation and the circulation of indigenous knowledge. Its an amazing collection of papers that help get the word out about the cutting edge of digital repatriation projects which are out there. Hats off to the organizers.

There are also many new less scholarly, more general-interest pieces out now. Limn, an art magazine/scholarly journal hybrid founded by our own Chris Kelty, published its fourth issue on Food Infrastructures. Yum. There is also a new issue of Anthropology of This Century out as well as a new number of Popular Anthropology.

I wish I could recommend specific articles out of all these journals, but frankly I’m swamped — and eager to hear what you all have to say. Anything in here you’re particularly keen to read? Or what would you recommend, having read some of this stuff? The Internetz wants to know.

journals – Savage Minds

What a cooperative proposal means for the AAA

Déjà Lu: Now, more than ever

OA anthropology, at a glance

Anthropology for a General Audience

Anthropology for Scholars

Multidisciplinary journals of interest

Tons of newly published open anthropology