Annual Meeting

Theme

The Revolutionary Potential of the Social Sciences: Transforming Possibilities
82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA)
March 22-26, 2022
James H. McDonald, Program Chair

Our natural and social worlds are undergoing tectonic transformations. In confronting these challenges, the social sciences, and their revolutionary potential, must frame, interpret, and understand the rapidly emerging contexts of new possibilities. What is this revolutionary potential? It is the ability to practice varied roles in research, application, and activism that build bold and transformative ideas and methods. 
Anthropologists and allied social scientists engage with the world, full of complex and often colliding ideas, values, practices, structures, and systems.  We challenge ourselves to gain enduring and holistic understandings that advance research and application. It is indeed a daunting task, given the resounding social and environmental problems of our time, including: human-driven climate change; mass displacement and migration; deep public health challenges and pandemics; rapidly shifting political orientations toward authoritarianism; the advent of entrenched ethno-nationalisms; reactions to these political dynamics through social and racial justice movements; new and ongoing violent conflicts; poverty and global economic crises; tremendous realignments of our major social institutions. 

We invite you to join us for the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) to explore and define the many potentials of applied anthropology and other social sciences.  The meeting will be hybrid in format, with onsite meetings in Salt Lake City, Utah, complemented by online participation. We will celebrate and engage local communities, and extend our efforts to support and involve global colleagues. We will ask questions fundamental to a social science that seeks to be revolutionary, such as: What are we for? What is our place in the world? How do we work, and for whom? How do we best communicate and engage? We will address these questions, and more, in the context of SfAA’ s efforts to support practitioners, scholars, and researchers committed to racial and social justice, diversity and inclusion, and relevant application of anthropology and kindred social sciences. 

Come join together in Salt Lake City (or hybrid online), where life’s elevated. Nestled at the foot of the Western Rockies, you will be treated to breathtaking views from a booming tech hub. The city serves as a gateway to national monuments and scenic byways. The downtown has a thriving arts scene, and iconic film industry locales—Park City and Sundance—are nearby destinations. We look forward to seeing you in the “Beehive State,” known for its incredible innovation, industriousness, and hospitality.

Program Chair, James H. McDonald, University of Montevallo (jmcdonald@montevallo.edu), 435-704-1524
Annual Meeting and Awards Coordinator: Don Stull (stull@ku.edu); 785-764-8967
Society for Applied Anthropology (info@appliedanthro.org); 405-843-5113
 

Co-Sponsors

The Society for Applied Anthropolgy has invited cognate professional associations to join as co-sponsors in the Annual Meeting. Those groups who have accepted the invitation are now working actively with the Program Chair on the content of the sessions. The groups include:

The Council on Nursing and Anthropology (CONAA) is an organization that brings together nurses, anthropologists and others interested in understanding and promoting the health of peoples and cultures around the world through research and practice innovations. Common interests of CONAA members are basic and applied health research, improved health care for vulnerable populations, and encouraging cultural and social justice content in education and research. CONAA holds yearly business meetings at SfAA followed by informal receptions for networking and mutual support. For more information about CONAA, visit http://www.conaa.org.

The Culture & Agriculture (C&A) Section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) aims to develop the study and understanding of agrarian systems from a holistic, social science perspective, and to link academics and practitioners concerned with agrarian issues, agricultural development, and agricultural systems through dissemination of scientific research, encouragement of effective instruction, and to encourage application of knowledge to public policy.

Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community (EPIC) promotes the use of ethnographic principles to create business value and brings conceptual leadership and practical skills to the problems and opportunities faced by organizations, markets, and society. EPIC people draw on the immense expertise of our global community to learn, connect, and develop as professionals, amplifying our impact together. We are practitioners who work to ensure that innovation, strategies, processes, and products are anchored in deep understandings of people and their everyday lives. Our community hails from all kinds of organizations and industries—technology corporations, product and service companies, a range of consultancies, universities and design schools, government and NGOs, and research institutes. EPIC people draw on tools and resources from the social sciences, humanities, data analytics, design, agile, scenario planning and other approaches to realize value for business and communities.

The Political Ecology Society (PESO) has as its object the promotion of interdisciplinary scientific investigation of the political and economic principles controlling the relations of human beings to one another and to the environment. As part of its efforts to meet these goals, PESO supports the publication of the Journal of Political Ecology, a peer reviewed electronic journal that publishes articles and reviews in English, French, and Spanish.

The Society for Anthropological Sciences (SAS) was organised to promote empirical research and social science in anthropology. The members of SAS want to further the development of anthropological science as empirical knowledge based on testable theory, sound research design and systematic methods for the collection and analysis of data. We seek to fulfill the historic mission of anthropology to describe and explain the range of variation in human biology, society, and culture across time and space. 

The Society for Disability Studies (SDS) is a scholarly organization dedicated to promoting disability studies. More than twenty-five years of rich history has enabled the organization to reach national and international members with expertise ranging from advocacy to perspectives on disability from a variety of disciplines.

Program Committee