American Ethnologist最新文献

For Beninese moviemakers, disinformation represents a crisis of morality, not truth. Drawing on my experience producing a movie with Nàgó (Yorùbá) partners in the Republic of Benin, I show how they embrace artifice: practical techniques for creating audiovisual media that advance their creators’ agenda. These techniques demand that creators separate technical from moral artifice—their production skills must serve the moral imperative to convey truth, an imperative grounded in Indigenous religious logics. Beninese creators emulate Nigeria's Nollywood movies, even as they resist those movies’ tendency to portray Indigenous religions as deceptive. In doing so, they adopt a visual epistemology of “surfacism,” wherein skilled fabricators concentrate on surface images to show Indigenous religions respectfully and safely. These techniques turn moviemaking into an act of religious praise, one that promotes Indigenous religions and conveys moral truths.

In the second of two interviews with leading anthropologists focused on academic freedom, the editors of American Ethnologist speak with Eve Darian-Smith (University of California, Irvine) and Virginia R. Dominguez (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). Darian-Smith recently published Policing Higher Education, and Dominguez has addressed academic freedom through her work with the World Anthropological Union and the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. This discussion centers on recent (2024–25) attacks on critical thought at United States tertiary institutions, situating them within longer histories of repression (e.g., the McCarthy era) and the global situation. Darian-Smith and Dominguez explore distinctions between free speech and academic freedom, arguing that the present political moment constitutes an unprecedented assault on higher education and research. They highlight how anthropology programs and cognate disciplines are especially vulnerable and discuss less visible modes of suppression, including digital surveillance, academic precarity, and weak collective organizing, while also pointing to tools and strategies for resistance.

Since ending conscription in 1963, Britain has fought its “small wars” with professional soldiers from deprived areas of the country, many recruited under the age of 18. During the 21st-century war on terror, these personnel were deemed vulnerable, at heightened risk of psychosocial harms, and entitled to more protection. Vulnerable soldiers bring a dangerous vulnerability into the state. While postimperial Britain relied on them to fill infantry units in an army with chronic personnel shortfalls, they pose thorny political and governance problems that I examine in three military spheres: recruitment, warfare, and mental health care. State violence is often seen as causing vulnerability in marginal groups, but when the state's own agents become vulnerable, they can disrupt its very capacity to exercise legitimate violence.

What makes for a successful submission to American Ethnologist? As with article submissions to any anthropological journal, there are several measures you can take to strengthen your article's chance of success. First, produce a well-written manuscript with a clearly articulated thesis. Second, know your journals: Is AE really the best venue for your work? Third, entice editors and reviewers with a compelling title and abstract. At the revision stage, common pitfalls include overrevising to accommodate every reviewer's suggestion or, conversely, responding to their feedback too lightly. If your article is accepted, its impact will largely depend on your own efforts at self-publicity. If it is rejected, consider the process a productive disappointment: you will leave with thoughtful feedback to help you revise the manuscript for submission elsewhere.