Anthropologists have long engaged communities and topics that are central to contemporary debates. Through ethnographic research, they aim to understand how people’s everyday lives are shaped by and in turn shape larger structural forces. However, although cultural and social anthropology have produced many insights to help us understand the world in which we live, anthropologists have mostly turned their conceptual and therefore ethical gaze inward, with few notable exceptions. Public Anthropologist, an international, peer-reviewed journal, opens the possibility for dialogue and debates that are timely and socially and politically challenging. It creates a hybrid, critical space between the ponderous nature of traditional academic journals and the immediacy of blogs, newspapers, and experts’ accounts. The journal examines the issues of our time in a way that both encourages and scrutinizes a diverse range of shifts outwards from the purely academic realm towards wider publics and counter-publics engaged in cultural and political exchanges and collective collaborations for change. This approach implicitly interrogates the implications and expectations of anthropology’s public presence.
Public Anthropologist boldly and candidly confronts conditions of violence, inequality, and injustice and explores ways in which anthropology might generate public awareness and have an impact on political change. The journal is interested in the space in which newspapers, television, political actors, new media, activists, experts, and academics continually mobilize positions that support or challenge dominant narratives.
Zielgruppe
Social & cultural anthropology
