Anthropology Matters: Call for papers

The politics of publishing in anthropology

Publishing ethnographic material is at the heart of the anthropological enterprise, and forms the basis of establishing academic careers. This edition of Anthropology Matters will consider not what we publish, but how, where and why we publish. It will address issues on the politics of knowledge of our discipline, by focusing on the production and circulation of the products of ethnography - our finished texts. We would particularly welcome pieces that provide case studies of journals from the countries, or areas, where we work. Conversations, and discussion pieces, with colleagues who edit, or are otherwise involved in journal and publishing work would be welcomed.

Questions to consider could include some of the following:

• To what extent are publishing practices influenced by research assessment exercises?
• Do anthropologists strategically aim their material at journals with high citation indexes?
• What influence has the RAE emphasis on journal publication had on the production of monographs, or edited volumes?
• How can junior or student researchers negotiate the requirements of publishing?
• How has the internet, and the on-line availability of journals impacted on the circulation and publishing of articles?
• To what extent do academics draw on their social networks to enter mainstream publishing?
• Do RAE pressures prevent authors from supporting struggling academic journals in the countries where they do their research?
• How does this impinge on our capacity to engage academically with our colleagues in the universities where we research?
• To what degree are ethnographic findings and articles available in the countries where we work?
• How much anthropological work is actually translated into the languages where we work?
• Can publishing practices be construed as 'systems of domination', and, if so, what does it mean when academics must publish in languages that for them evoke a history of colonial authority and intellectual alienation?
• Should ethnographers from powerful institutions be encouraged to publish locally, and in local languages? Or, if they do this, will they be appropriating local discourses into the dominant centre?
• Do scholars working outside the English language publishing world find their work is marginalised, and what changes would they like to see?

For this edition of Anthropology Matters we invite papers of no more than 4000 words on all aspects of publishing practices. Please send an expression of interest to the editor via email by 30th June 2004.