Newsletter: October 2004
Nancy Vuckovic and Janelle S. Taylor, Contributing Editors
Welcome back. We hope this column finds you refreshed and renewed. This month and next, commentaries by SMA president Craig Janes will kick of the new editorial year. He invites us all to be active in the SMA and its “Take a Stand” initiative. We invite you to be active in this column and the SMA website. See details below for submitting notices, commentaries, and essays.
State of the Society Address
Craig Janes, SMA President (UC Denver)
It is customary for the incoming president to offer a few comments on what they hope to accomplish during their term of office. Before doing so, I would like to acknowledge the substantial accomplishments of the two very active and forward-looking presidents that preceded me – Bill Dressler and Mark Nichter. Both worked to solidify the position of the SMA within the AAA, and to link the SMA to organizations and groups outside of anthropology. I thus inherit an organization that is strong organizationally and financially, active in terms of outreach and policy visibility, and productive in its contributions to the parent discipline. Much of what I will be doing as President will be to continue, expand, or institutionalize many of the initiatives begun by Bill and Mark. We owe them a great many thanks for their efforts on our behalf.
Associations like the SMA have, in my view, two functions: building scholarly community, and engaging that community constructively with other organizations, institutions, and communities on topics of interest and concern. These two functions require separate activities. Building community is something that most of us, as anthropologists, understand and do reasonably well. It involves establishing effective and accessible means of communication for our members and building responsive leadership. As the SMA has grown in size and diversity of interests and occupational roles, communication needs have become more complex. To match this complexity the Society has, and here I must acknowledge the formidable drive and energy of Mark Nichter, moved forward very quickly. Our website has developed rapidly, and has become an excellent resource for members. Recently the SMA joined H-Net, offering list serve opportunities to members, thus providing another important means of communication. While I think all would agree that we have not fully realized the considerable potential offered by these new modes of interaction, over time website and internet-based communications will become more established, and more integral, to the functioning of the SMA. Our goal should be to make sure that we continue to work to insure that the website and H-Net Medanthro are kept relevant to the needs of the majority of members. The SMA will need to formalize, and fund, the position of a web and list manager with authority equivalent to the editors of the MAQ and our news column in the Anthropology Newsletter. This is something I hope, with Board support, to accomplish over the next year.
Although we have made great progress in building our internal communication structures, our progress toward engaging the SMA with broader publics is still in its infancy. The SMA “Takes a Stand” initiative, begun by Mark Nichter, is a promising step in this direction. Our first initiative, focusing on the ethics of clinical trials in global context, and led by Kate McQueen, was successful, resulting in a session organized at the 2004 SfAA meetings in Dallas. The next step is to move these papers and presentations out of the anthropology arena, and into cross-disciplinary venues. We will continue the “Takes a Stand” initiative this coming November when the SMA addresses the issue of health disparities at the annual AAA meetings (I’ll describe this more fully in the November news column). The Board and I will evaluate the “Takes a Stand” initiative this year, with an eye toward enhancing its visibility. Broader input from the membership, especially the Special Interest Groups, is needed if this is to be a success. Pay attention to the website and to H-Net over the next several months as we issue calls for ideas and comments.
I look forward to a productive year for the SMA. See you in San Francisco!
Anthropology and Health, 2004 – Domains of Application in the 21st Century
Linda Bennett (U Memphis), Noel Chrisman (U Washington), and Linda Whiteford (U S Florida)
The twenty-third annual Inter-University Centre for Post-Graduate Studies course on Anthropology and Health was held June 14-18, 2004, in the town of Hvar, Croatia, organized by the Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, Croatia. We and Pavao Rudan—Director of the Institute—were course directors.
Seventeen scholars from Europe and the U.S. participated in the course, which combined formal scholarly presentations with informal discussions, social gatherings, and historical tours. The course this year encompassed both sociocultural and biological aspects of medical anthropology, with a view toward applications of research results. Abstracts will be published in the December issue of Collegium Antropologicum.
Leslie Lieberman (U Central Florida - llieberm@mail.ucf.edu) and Pavao Rudan (pavao.rudan@inantro.hr) will coordinate the 2006 Anthropology and Health course on “Weight control in a modern world: Is it culture bound or boundless culture?” Interested people are encouraged to contact them.
Please send your comments, contributions, news and announcements to the SMA Contributing Editors Nancy Vuckovic (nancy.vuckovic@kpchr.org) or Janelle Taylor (jstaylor@u.washington.edu).