In this month’s column, Barbara Yngvesson reflects on her recently completed term as President of APLA. The members of APLA thank Barbara for all of her efforts on behalf of the Association.

Security Perceptions

By: Barbara Yngvesson (Hampshire C)

The metaphor of fence as security perception, and the increasing power of such “perceptions,” in the US as well as overseas in the post 9/11 world, is an apt image for rethinking the focus and relevance of APLA. Long before the events of 9/11, it was clear that the “political” and the “legal” named in the title of this organization, which many years ago defined uneasily joined fields of anthropology, needed to be reconsidered in ways that spoke to and helped lay out an organizational ground for new forms of research on the politics of law. Today, this research includes studies by anthropologists on a range of issues: from (im)material borders and fences that include and exclude, and the relevance of such borders to studies of human rights, global terrorism, immigration, citizenship, financial globalization and intellectual property. The Mamdani lecture, with its focus on new forms of apartheid, was emblematic of this creative joining of law, politics and activism in contemporary anthropological research.

PoLAR editor Annelise Riles has been committed to other ways of rethinking and reconnecting the legal and the political in anthropology, working in particular on furthering the dialogue between anthropologists and the legal academy. Riles’ work in encouraging new institutional subscriptions by law schools should make PoLAR more easily accessible to legal scholars, a move that will be facilitated by AAA’s shift to the AnthroSource digital portal and the anticipated inclusion of PoLAR on Lexis-Nexis. Riles began her editorship with a symposium on Anthropology and Legal Studies in 2003, which was aimed specifically at outreach to legal scholars. The upcoming symposium issue on Human Rights will strengthen this move. Another form of outreach that the APLA Board has encouraged in the past two years has involved supporting various forms of participation by Latin American anthropologists in AAA, both as session organizers and in running for Executive Board positions. María Teresa Sierra’s election to the Board in 2002, and her very successful invited double session at the 2003 AAA Meeting, “Critical Studies of Human Rights and Multiculturalism in Latin America,” was an exciting realization of this form of outreach.

I am extremely pleased to be leaving APLA in the excellent hands of its new officers and Board members.

POLAR's New Rapid Review Policy

PoLAR has implemented a four-week response policy for submitted manuscripts. This is one of the fastest turnaround times of any journal in our field. Manuscripts should not exceed 8,000 words in length, book reviews 900-3,000 words. Prospective authors may submit manuscripts electronically (in Word format) or by sending four hard copies to the editorial offices. Manuscripts must not be under consideration by another journal or have been previously published. Type authorship and contact information on the cover page; only the title should appear on the manuscript. Consult the style guide at www.aaanet.org/apla/ polarstyleguide.html.

Send all submissions and correspondence to: Annelise Riles, Editor, PoLAR, Cornell Law School/Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, 213 McGraw Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853; polar@cornell.edu.