2013 NEAA Annual Meeting

“Applying Anthropology: Challenging Perspectives/Creating Alternatives.”

The 53rd annual conference of the Northeastern Anthropological Association will be held March 1-3, 2013, at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. The meeting’s theme will be, “Applying Anthropology: Challenging Perspectives/Creating Alternatives.” While increasingly recognized in the public sphere, the value of anthropology is also sometimes challenged in the political arena. Anthropologists have responded to this critique in different ways. Some note that the discipline enhances critical thinking skills and provides a foundation for many careers. Others note that practitioners of Anthropology can apply its lessons to better understand contemporary issues in areas such as health, heritage and the environment. For some its strength is in its ability to provide a framework for discovering social and environmental justice issues in the past and the present. Some of us see our work as a vehicle to challenge injustices and combat racism and create new alternatives for ourselves and the communities we study. Thinking about the various uses of Anthropology, this year’s theme highlights the many ways we can put our discipline into action to understand, and perhaps improve, the social, political and economic intricacies of our world.