Newsletter: January 2005
Nancy Vuckovic and Janelle S. Taylor, Contributing Editors
Editors’ note: Dr. Janes presents a thoughtful message below about lessons that can be learned from events surrounding the recent decision to move the AAA annual meeting to Atlanta. The complete text of Dr. Janes’ message can be found on the SMA website: http://www.medanthro.net/ . Due to space constraints and the importance of this message, we are unable to post the names of winners of SMA Awards in this month’s column. We offer recipients our heartiest congratulations and a promise to post the award announcements in the February AN. You can also find award announcements on the SMA website.
A Message from the SMA President
By Craig Janes, SMA President
The labor action and subsequent lockout of workers by the majority of major hotel chains in San Francisco, and the subsequent AAA crisis, likely produced a number of conflicting sentiments among the SMA membership. Whatever one’s eventual position on the matter, this crisis highlighted a number of weaknesses in the governance of the AAA and in the ability of large AAA sections, like the SMA, to take a timely public stand. If there is anything to learn here it is that we need to improve the responsiveness of the SMA and its parent association. This is in our collective best interest,because the issues and concerns central to this particular labor-management conflict are also fundamental to our subject and the work we do as medical anthropologists. These problems include the globalization of capital and effective resistance to its interests; the health care crisis in the U.S.; and the exploitation of service workers- many of whom are first and second generation immigrants--and the social, economic, and health consequences of that exploitation.
I believe we can take away from this affair at least three lessons that suggest practical solutions.
First, and most importantly, the AAA must exercise due diligence in contracting with corporate entities. The highest ethical principles, which I believe must be informed by social justice theories, must guide these actions. It was surprising to many of us that the AAA had not insisted on a strike provision in its contract with the Hilton. Second, we need to pay greater attention to the local settings of our meetings. As purveyors of the importance of paying attention to local context, we seem to have been blind-sided by this one. We did not have enough good information soon enough. Even when knowledge of the strike was circulated widely to the membership, the underlying issues – just a few of which I have outlined here – were not, and probably are not, widely understood by members. We need more effective, and efficient communication of relevant information. Information dissemination must be matched with an effective means of assessing the opinions of the membership. Third, other large professional organizations will face similar crises in arranging their own meetings and conferences. It behooves us to join with these organizations in communicating to hotel corporations and conference organizers that we abide by certain principles that must take precedence in contractual negotiations.
How might these lessons be incorporated into the governance of the Society for Medical Anthropology? These are things that the Board has just begun to take up. I believe the SMA must be, and must support its membership in being, much more public in its scholarship. Mark Nichter’s launching of the ongoing “Takes-a-Stand” initiative is a good start in this direction. I will recommend at our Spring board meeting that we form an SMA “rapid-response” policy group, which will be linked to what all of us hope to be a much more invigorated AAA policy center. The SMA policy group will be charged with three tasks: to assemble and disseminate information on important policy matters that are of concern to SMA members; author statements and white papers on these policy issues for public circulation; and resources for individual members who are attempting to take action on some problem or topic.
I hope we can continue to work toward creating an effective scholarly community. We have done a good job in developing our internal communications. We have a great journal, an excellent website, and our own list serve (of which I hope you are members). We provide ample conference venues for our members to communicate with one another. It’s now time to communicate effectively with those outside our community, and to engage in constructive praxis around those issues that mean most to us as individual citizens as well as scholars. In this time where the concept of morality has become hegemonic discourse, it is important for us, in coalition with other organizations, to articulate a more fair and inclusive set of ethical principles. I ask you to join with me in making this effort. I welcome your ideas, suggestions, self-nominations, and commitments to making this so.