Moving Forward with the 2021 Annual Meeting

Mark Edberg
Program Chair

In these uncertain times, planning anything is always difficult. But the Program Committee is moving forward and the meeting outlines are beginning to take shape. It is heartening to see the amount of enthusiasm and hard work taking place to make this meeting work, in what is increasingly looking like a hybrid format that will involve both in-person and online/virtual sessions, events and activities (you will be hearing more about this soon). A significant amount of outreach has occurred with local organizations and universities – various forms of collaboration and session sponsorship are under discussion with the Northeast Anthropological Association and Southern Anthropological Society and contacts have been made with the several Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the area as well as other universities. The Local Arrangements subcommittee is honing down a list of local activities (e.g., tours, presentations) and events, many of which could be either in-person or virtual depending on circumstances, and there will be a unique effort to involve anthropologists working with military and veteran’s issues. For those who can attend in person, the meeting location is right on the waterfront in a highly walkable and historic downtown area. We are also welcoming submissions of papers and sessions that could not be presented in Albuquerque because of the cancellation. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis, racial justice movement, climate change imperatives and other pressing issues provide a meeting context in which the work of applied anthropologists and other social scientists is critically important! 

If you don’t already know, the 2021 meeting theme is “Linking Social, Cultural and Physical Ecologies.” Keep tuning in for more updates on Norfolk 2021!  

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