AES 2001 Annual Report

Annual Report from AES to the AAA, 2000-2001
Submitted by Susan Harding

Continuing Projects

AES Website: The AES website functions well has been improved and updated in several ways. It is partially hosted at AAA so we no longer need to change addresses when the President changes, just move some web files behind the scenes to a new location. The on-line spring meeting submission and registration process worked very well again. We moved the AES member email list to an independent location (Topica, a free email group service) but are still a long way from developing the list to a point where we can use it effectively to communicate with members. Vicki O'Day, the out-going student representative and web manager, documented her work and passed on some recommendations for simplifying the web-page maintenance process to her successor, Leo Hsu.

Cultural Anthropology Magazine: The committee formed by the Board in 1998-1999 to develop a contemporary issues/public affairs magazine met at both the 2000 spring meeting in Montreal and at the Washington DC 2001 AAA meetings. Format options, funding sources, editorial arrangements, and a preliminary budget were discussed. We decided to create a sample issue as a web page through the AES webside (a webpage describing the proposed journal already exists at the site). The committee (Dean Birkenkamp, Emily Martin, Ida Susser, Dan Segal, Don Brenneis, Louise Lamphere, Joe Dumit, several excellent new student members, and others) will continue its work in the coming year.

Tenure Norms: The Tenure Norms committee did not make much headway this year because the Board was preoccupied with other matters. The committee still exists and Mary Huber, interim committee head, circulated some memos concerning possible future activities, but the committee needs attention and co-leadership from one of the officers and/or Board members to continue its work. At its last meeting, a workshop at the 2000 AAA meetings, those present expressed a number of serious concerns about standards and working conditions for anthropologists in the academy. We talked about placing a call in AN for "illustrative cases," cases which exemplify emerging problematic standards and conditions on campuses.

New Initiatives

Internal reorganization: Although AES operations are financially sound, in the last year we had to cut back some of our basic operations to balance our budget. We eliminated graduate student travel stipends for the AES 2001 spring meetings and the modest honoraria paid to the chair and members of book prize committess, and we decided not to convene spring meetings in 2002. Spring meetings are planned for 2003, and we hope to reconvene them on a yearly basis after that. As of the November 2001 AAA meetings, the Board was discussing a terms of a contract proposal to move the publication of AE from AAA to Duke University. Louise Lamphere and Don Brenneis, AAA President and President-Elect, attended our spring board meeting and told us AAA would consider renegotiating the AAA charges made to AES which are becoming increasingly burdensome, but we gather this discussion cannot occur at this time.

Spring Meetings: The 2000 AES meetings, chaired by Councillor Ida Susser, were held in Montreal, in conjunction with the Canadian Anthropology Society. The theme of the joint meetings was "Culture, Difference, Inequality." Susan Harding delivered the AES Keynote Address, "A Colloquy of Voices." Plans for the 2003 meetings, to be held in Providence, Rhode Island, were discussed at the 2001 AAA/AES Board Meeting in Washington.

Publications: Under the editorship of Carol Greenhouse, the American Ethnologist, continues to be strong and vibrant. Turn-around time is short, submissions are up, the budget is balanced, and the issues are excellent. A committee (Fred Myers, chair, Dan Segal, Steven Caton, and Susan Harding) was appointed to search for a new AE editor. Virginia Dominguez was selected among a field of candidates and will begin her term in June, 2002.

Book Prizes: AES awarded two book prizes at the 2001 AAA meetings. Teresa Caldeira was awarded the AES senior book prize for her book City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and

Citizenship in São Paulo, published by the University of California in 2001. The Sharon Stephens First Book Prize was awarded to Julia Paley for her book Marketing Democracy: Power and Social Movements in Post-Dictatorship Chile, published by the University of California Press in 2001.

AES EXECUTIVE BOARD 2000-2001

PRESIDENT: 1999-2001
Susan Harding
Department of Anthropology
Social Sciences 1
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
hard@cats.ucsc.edu

PRESIDENT ELECT: 1999-2001
Fred Myers
Department of Anthropology
New York University
25 Waverly Place
New York, NY 10003
fred.myers@nyu.edu

SECRETARY: 2001-Present
Ralph Litzinger
Department of Cultural Anthropology
Box 90091
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
O: 919-681-6250
H: 919-416-0520
FAX: 919-681-8483
litz@socsci.duke.edu

TREASURER: 1999-Present
David Hess
Department of Science and Technology Studies
Sage Building
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York 12180
hessd@rpi.edu

COUNCILLOR: 2000 - 2004

AAA 2001 MEETING CHAIR: 2000
Gertrude Fraser
Ford Foundation (2000-2001):
(212) 573-4693 (W)
(908) 608-0690 (H)
email: G.FRASER@FORDFOUND.ORG
123 Summit Avenue, Apt. 3
Summit, NJ 07901

COUNCILLOR: 1999-2003

SPRING MEETING C0-CHAIR: 2003
Kathleen Stewart
Department of Anthropology
University of Texas, Austin
Austin, TX 78712
kstewart@mail.utexas.edu

COUNCILLOR: 1998-2002

SPRING MEETING CO-CHAIR: 2003
John Borneman
Department of Anthropology
McGraw Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853
jwb5@cornell.edu

COUNCILLOR: 1997-2001

SPRING MEETING CHAIR: 2001
Ida Susser
Anthropology Department
Hunter College
695 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10024
isusser@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu

EDITOR, AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST
Carol Greenhouse
Dept of Anthropology
Princeton University
100 Aaron Burr Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544-1011
tel 609-258-7369
fax 609-258-1032
e-mail: cgreenho@princeton.edu

GRADUATE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE: 1999-2001
Vicki O'Day
Department of Anthropology
Social Sciences 1
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
oday@calterra.com

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