Annual Report of SCA President to AAA for 2002

Annual Report of SCA President to AAA for 2002

1. Membership

From October 2001 through September 2002, SCA membership increased from 1,500 to 1602 members.

2. Finances

SCA is financially stable, with our revenues meeting our expenses within a reasonable degree of error: in 2001, our revenues of 91,608.48 were $41.21 below our expenses. We are cautiously optimistic that we will have a somewhat better result for 2002.Over the last few years, the accounting procedures used by AAA to assess charges to SCA, particularly for CA, has been a major concern of the SCA Board. In particular, the SCA Board has focused its attention on the embedded "double overhead charge" to SCA (and other sections that publish journals) in the established accounting practices. To summarize: in recent years AAA has charged sections with journals both for the costs of journal production, which is exactly as it should be, and an overhead charge for services unrelated to journals-i.e., services that are incurred by all sections-that has not been charged to sections without journals. In effect, then, sections with journals, such as SCA, have been unwittingly subsidizing both general AAA operations and sections without journals. Moreover, this "double overhead charge" has been assessed in proportion to journal expenses, thus impacting sections with major journals-such as SCA-disproportionately. The SCA Board is thus pleased that this year, thanks to the leadership of AAA President Don Brenneis, AAA Executive Director Bill Davis, and others, a full and fair adjustment in these charges was made for the upcoming 2003 fiscal year. The SCA Board applauds this initial step in ameliorating the current situation, and in this regard passed the following resolution at its fall Board meeting (held at the AAA meeting in New Orleans):"The SCA Board urges the AAA to adopt, on a permanent basis and without further delay, an accounting procedure that ceases the practice of charging Sections with journals disproportionately for AAA services and expenses that are unrelated to journal production."

3. Cultural Anthropology

In 2002, SCA published the 17th volume of Cultural Anthropology. This marked the successful transition of the editorial office to that of our new CA editor, Ann Anagnost of the University of Washington.A number of indices, provided to SCA by the AAA publication office, suggest the strength and vitality of CA. According to the AAA publication office, in recent years, CA has ranked either first or second among AAA journals, in terms of rates of citation. So too, the external review of AAA publications commissioned by the AAA indicates that CA, in contrast to many of AAA's journals, is published on a financially sound basis.SCA's increase in membership in the last year also testifies to the vitality of the journal, as does an increase in subscriptions, from 547 in October 2001 to 571 in September 2002.

Over the past two years, SCA has been a leading advocate of the entry of AAA journals into JSTOR. In particular, at its fall 2002 Board meeting, the SCA Board voted to have CA enter JSTOR, and thus have its back issues available through the web in many libraries throughout the world. SCA is very pleased that the AAA Executive Board acted in accord with the SCA Board, and that CA and other AAA journals are now available in JSTOR.At the same time, the SCA Board was disappointed the AAA chose to set the "moving wall" determining which past issues of CA (and other AAA journals) are in JSTOR at seven years, rather than the five years that the SCA Board had approved. So too, the SCA Board was disappointed that this change was made without any consultation with, and even without informing, the SCA Board. In this regard, the SCA Board passed the following resolution: "The SCA Board urges the AAA to change, without delay, the seven-year-before-the-present moving wall for CA in JSTOR to a five-year-before-the-present moving wall. The SCA Board also expresses its disappointment that the decision to adopt the seven-year-before-the-present moving wall, rather than a five-year-before-the-present moving wall, was taken by the AAA without either consulting with, or even informing, the Sections whose journals are in JSTOR. We urge the AAA to keep the ideal of shared governance, between the AAA central governing institutions and the Sections, in mind in regard to all policy matters impacting on journals that are under the editorial control of the Sections."

4. Cultural Horizons Prize

SCA awarded the first annual "Cultural Horizons Prize," for an article published in CA in the previous two years (meaning 2000 and 2001, in this award cycle). The recipient of the prize in 2002 was Saba Mahmood for her article, "Feminist Theory, Embodiment, & the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival," which appeared in CA volume 16 (2001).

The idea of this prize is to select an article that represents important and forward-looking work in the discipline of cultural-social anthropology. In this spirit, SCA appoints a panel of graduate students to select each year's recipient, and we take this opportunity to thank the three graduate students who served on our panel in 2002: Erin Koche (The New School for Social Research), Guha Shankar (University of Texas, Austin), and Sasha Welland (UC Santa Cruz).

5. SCA Contributions to the AAA Annual Meeting program

SCA Board member Lisa Rofel served as the SCA program officer for the 2002 AAA meeting. The SCA sponsored a number of sessions at the AAA this year, including its annual "Culture-at-Large" session. That session was organized by SCA Board Member Pauline Turner Strong and featured Professor Gerald Torrés of the University of Texas Law School, who is the co-author (with Professor Lani Guanier) of The Miner's Canary. Anthropologists Renato Rosaldo, Nahum Chandler, and Verena Stolcke responded to Professor Torres.

6. Governance

In accord with its established procedures and its by-laws, the SCA Board held its annual business meeting at the AAA meeting in New Orleans, and held separate Board meetings in the spring (in Claremont, CA) and the fall (in New Orleans). In 2002, Roger Lancaster and Vincanne Adams completed their terms on the SCA Board. As president, and on behalf of the continuing members of the Board, I thank them both for their considerable service to SCA during their four years on the Board. We also welcome incoming Board members Michael Fischer and Ana Alonso.

Respectfully Submitted, Daniel A. Segal (SCA President 2002-03)

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