The 2020 AAA Annual Meeting has been cancelled, but that does not mean we will remain silent. Quite the opposite: anthropologists will be RAISING OUR VOICES through a Fall event series that will be offered online for live, interactive participation as well as view-on-demand.
The 2020 theme, “Truth and Responsibility,” will be carried over to 2021, when it can be more fully realized with our Annual Meeting in Baltimore (November 17-21, 2021). Program Chair Bianca Williams has committed to chair the 2021 Executive Program Committee. The people and groups who proposed sessions and papers in response to the 2020 Call for Papers will be asked if they would like to have their submissions deferred to 2021. If they say “yes,” their submissions will be retained and reviewed for the 2021 Annual Meeting Program, AND they have the option of preparing a submission for RAISING OUR VOICES 2020. If they say “no,” they will still have the option to prepare a submission for RAISING OUR VOICES 2020. This includes the “Executive Sessions” that were already accepted for the 2020 program, since they were in direct response to the 2020 Theme. Additional information for individuals that submitted to the 2020 Annual Meeting.
A call for submissions will be live within the coming week. We will host two types of events:
There is no specific theme for the RAISING OUR VOICES series. We are counting on our community to raise its collective voices on issues of research, scholarship, and practice that matter in this historic moment.
Please note that an important part of the RAISING OUR VOICES series is providing accessible content so that as many participants as possible can meaningfully engage in these conversations. All presentations should include accessible practices, which you can learn more about on the Accessibility page of our website.
Proposers wishing to submit view-on-demand content will upload their submission to the portal and select the Section they would like to review it. Section Program Chairs will review view-on-demand submissions, vetting them for quality and ensuring they meet the appropriate standard approved for inclusion in RAISING OUR VOICES.
Cancelling the Annual Meeting has meant doing away with four other kinds of events and activities that we normally organize to take advantage of a large portion of membership being physically present in one place. These include:
Total live-streamed content (190 hours) will be divided among all participating Sections based on their total membership as of December of 2019. Live-streamed content will be spread over 10 days, with no content from any given Section in competition with other content from that same Section. Participants are limited to only one live-streamed session; organizers / chairs / submitters may be included on more than one live-streamed session, but may not present in more than one.
View-on-demand content will be uploaded to the platform and made available on the first day of RAISING OUR VOICES, and will remain through the end of 2020. There is no limit to how many view-on-demand submissions in which a participant may appear.
The choice of technology platforms will be made once the general scheme is approved. Some criteria to be applied in selecting the platform(s):
RAISING OUR VOICES participant pricing will be significantly discounted from the regular Annual Meeting registration and placed on a sliding scale, with provisions for group rates and registration fee waivers based on need (criteria to be developed soon).
If you are unable to pay the discounted registration fee, write to meetings@americananthro.org to request a fee waiver. If you would like to pay more to offset AAA’s expenses and subsidize participation by those who are unable to pay, that option will be available when registration opens in September.
If you have any questions, please contact meetings@americananthro.org.
