2003 SHA Annual Report

Society for Humanistic Anthropology Section Report to the American Anthropological Association

February 1, 2004
This report describes activities of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology from November 24, 2002 to November 23, 2003.

The Officers for the Year of the Report: President: Alma Gottlieb (2002-2004), ajgottli@uiuc.edu Vice-President and President-Elect: Jeanne Simonelli (2002-2004), simonejm@wfu.edu Immediate Past President: Daniel Ingersoll (2001-2002), dwingersoll@smcm.edu Treasurer: Frederic W. Gleach, fwg2@twcny.rr.com Secretary: Vilma Santiago-Irizarry (2003-2006), vs23@cornell.edu Co-Editors for SHA column in AN: Frederic W. Gleach, fwg2@twcny.rr.com and Vilma Santiago-Irizarry, vs23@cornell.edu Editor of Anthropology and Humanism: Edith Turner (2003-2006), elt9w@virginia.edu Board Members: Roy Richard Grinker (2003-2005), rgrink@gwu.edu, Chunggrink@aol.com Carol Delaney (2003-2005), cdelaney@leland.Stanford.EDU Michelle Johnson (2003-2006), mjohnson@bucknell.edu Duncan Earle (2003-2006), dearle@utep.edu Robbie Davis-Floyd (2003-2006), davis-floyd@mail.utexas.edu Graduate Student Board Members: Maria I. McMath (2003-2005), mmcmath@Princeton.EDU Jessaca Leinaweaver (2003-2005), jleinawe@umich.edu

Special Committees and Functions in 2004: Poetry Competition: Dell Hymes, dhymes@adelphia.net Fiction Competition: Kirin Narayan (chair), knarayan@facstaff.wisc.edu Philip Graham, p-graham@uiuc.edu Ernestine McHugh, emchugh@esm.rochester.edu Turner Prize Committee: Barbara Babcock (chair), bbabcock@U.Arizona.EDU 2 other members to be added Student Paper Competition: Michelle Johnson (chair), mjohnson@bucknell.edu David Koester, ffdck@uaf.edu Daphne Berdahl, berda004@umn.edu AAA Program Committee: Jeanne Simonelli (chair), simonejm@wfu.edu and Vilma Santiago-Irizarry, vs23@cornell.edu Webmaster: Daniel W. Ingersoll, Jr., dwingersoll@smcm.edu

Publications: The section column "Society for Humanistic Anthropology" in the Anthropology Newsletter is co-edited by Frederic W. Gleach and Vilma Santiago-Irizarry. The editors have consistently contributed compelling and timely pieces to the column while publishing helpful information for our membership and readership.

The society's journal, Anthropology and Humanism, is edited by Edith Turner. She has done a fine job assembling special topical issues of the journal and keeping the journal on production schedule. The June 2003 issue was a special issue entitled, Contingency and Creativity: South Africa after Apartheid, with guest editor, Christopher J. Colvin. The December 2003 issue included poems by the 2003 Poetry Competition winners, as well as announcements of the Victor Turner Prize winners. Other Anthropology and Humanism editors include: Fiction Editor, Gregory Reck; Poetry Editor, Dell Hymes; and Book Review Editor, Paul Benson.

Awards at the 2003 AAA Annual Meeting: Each year, three categories of awards are made. The Victor Turner Prize winner ($500) and one or two honorable mentions are for innovative books that best embody humanistic anthropology. The winner(s), and honorable mention, are invited to read selections from their work at a special session at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association ("Award- Winning Work in Humanistic Anthropology: Readings from this Year's Prize Winners from the Victor Turner, Fiction, Poetry and Student Paper Prize Competitions"). The Victor Turner co-winners in 2003 were Alan Klima for The Funeral Casino: Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand, and Hugh Raffles for In Amazonia: A Natural History. Honorable mentions went to Thomas Buckley for Standing Ground: Yurok Indian Spirituality, 1850-1990, Judith Farquhar for Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China, and Michael J. Lambek for The Weight of the Past: Living with History in Mahajanqa, Madagascar. This year's judging committee members were Barbara Babcock (chair), Margaret Wiener and Lawrence Cohen.

Heidi Kelly and Melisa Cahnmann, winners of the annual Poetry Competition, also read selections from their works at the special session, along with the Victor Turner awardees; the winning poetry selections are published in Anthropology and Humanism.

This year, no Fiction Competition winner or Student Paper Prize winners were awarded.

Meeting Program at the AAA Annual Meeting 2003: The SHA held a Board Meeting on Thursday, November 20, at 7:00-9:00 p.m. The Business Meeting convened on Friday, November 21, from 6:15- 7:30 p.m. The minutes of the 2002 SHA Meeting and the Treasurer's reports will be ratified at next year's Board Meeting in San Francisco.

At this year's AAA meeting the following invited sessions were sponsored by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology: "Discovering Children and Childhood through Ethnography: Possibilities and Perils" and "Practice, Performance, and Participation: Lasting Legacies of Fieldwork." The Society for Humanistic Anthropology also sponsored a poster session: "Community Vision: The Construction of Identity, Image and Resistance in a Century of Change." A special awards session was supported by the SHA: "Award-Winning Work in Humanistic Anthropology: Readings from this Year's Prize Winners from the Victor Turner, Fiction, Poetry and Student Paper Prize Competitions." The SHA did not co-sponsor any sessions with other AAA sections this year.

Workshops at the AAA Annual Meeting 2003: A series of workshops sponsored by the SHA have been quite popular and have served both as a resource for student and professional anthropologists alike, and as major fund raisers to support our journal and other activities. In 2003 we sponsored seven very successful workshops: Ethnographic Writing; How to Submit an Article to an Anthropology Journal; How to Submit Your First Article to an Anthropology Journal; Submitting Your First Article to an Anthropology Journal; How to Turn Your Dissertation into a Book; Creative Writing for Anthropologists; How to Submit a Book Prospectus to an Academic Publisher.

Treasurer's Report for 2003: At the time of the annual meeting, the budget was still in flux due to the developments associated with AnthroSource; publication costs, in particular, remained unknown -- and they constitute virtually all of our expenses. We project that these costs will be going down from what they have been in the past, but we'll also have new expenses associated with the transition to digital access. Our fund balance is reasonable, for the old status quo, but without a cushion yet (we had just begun work on building one).

Memberships are up; there were 318 members (as of Nov. 2003). This is close to a 50% increase in members from previous years. Our membership drive has been successful and continues to recruit new members. Lapsed members are also down, however, suggesting that we have recaptured some who had let their membership expire. This is good, but we can still add more new members. There were an additional 169 subscribers to Anthropology and Humanism (as of Nov. 2003), which is a major increase in subscriptions from earlier this year, although down from previous years.

The Turner Prize Fund remains self-funded by a $50 entry fee that is submitted for each book entry. The Turner Prize had a net increase of over $1,000 for 2003. For the first time this year we awarded a cash prize ($50) to each of our poetry winners. We have discussed setting up new special-purpose funds, but decided under the new guidelines that we should not do so (we'd have to get $10,000 and keep that minimum in the account before we withdraw any funds). We can fund the new awards from general operating expenses. This year we awarded a cash prize of $50 to our poetry winners.

Outreach Initiatives: In light of our continued commitment to awarding excellent non-traditional anthropological writing (poetry, fiction, et al), we have started drafting plans for a fundraising drive. This coming year, we intend to finalize the specifics to the campaign. This will include sending a fundraising letter to individual possible donors.

In early February 2004 we sent notices of the Victor Turner Prize Competition to approximately 115 academic and general publishers. We will also be sending information on our Poetry and Fiction Prize Competitions to literary magazines and other writing journals.

In addition to our efforts to raise donations from private donors, in February 2004, the SHA solicited advertisements from over 100 book publishers to appear in future issues of Anthropology and Humanism. This revenue will be used to cover basic SHA and Anthropology and Humanism operating costs, as well as help fund future SHA projects.

The SHA hopes to co-sponsor a session at the 2004 meetings with the National Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA). The SHA will also be submitting a proposal for a panel to be designated as a Presidential Invited session at the Nov. 2004 meeting of the AAA. This panel will mark the 30th anniversary of SHA.

We are intending also to expand our membership base overseas to our international colleagues. We have identified one colleague based in the U.K. who has agreed to run for a position on our Board in the next term cycle.

Concerns of the SHA: Discussions at the executive board meeting centered around the transition to AnthroSource. While SHA is committed to helping ease the transition to AnthroSource, SHA is concerned about possible negative consequences of this changeover. The most serious concern of SHA is possible damage to our membership and subscription base due to web access to our journal.

Officer and Board Goals for 2004: 1. Membership drive: continue with plan to increase membership. 2. Solicit advertising revenues from book publishers advertising in Anthropology and Humanism. 3. Revise bylaws and bring before Executive Board in San Francisco (2004) for approval. 4. Expand SHA web offerings. 5. Seek to have Anthropology and Humanism join the ISI (Institute of Scientific Information) journals database. 6. Produce a guide/schedule of duties for all officers and committees members.

Respectfully submitted, Alma Gottlieb President, Society for Humanistic Anthropology (2002-2004)

About AAA / Join AAA / Jobs & Careers / AAA Meetings / AAA Publications
Sections & Interest Groups / Staff Directory / Anthro Links / Support AAA

Questions or comments? We want to hear from you!
Contact us / AAA Privacy Policy