Theme

Anthropologists avow the value of anthropological perspectives and seek to bring such views to bear on the understanding of "value" itself. What kinds of value do anthropologists claim for their work, and how is value visible in it? What do others see as the value/s of anthropological perspectives, research and writing? What does anthropology have to contribute to understandings of value in general?

AAS2019 invites panels on the subject of value, or values; and the various ways in which value is realized,recognized and theorized in anthropological work. We welcome panels that examine how value has been created, asserted and measured within anthropological traditions and how the value of anthropological work has been evaluated by the wider community. The debates that surround the assessment of a 'good' ethnography or a 'good' project document, determine the health of the discipline but our own disciplinary sense of what innovations is good is increasingly open to challenge from a wider audience who demand a strategic or practical outcome from our work, and from reviewers of our work in the communities we work with who demand that we address their concerns. Our ability to entertain other versions of 'value' through our own valued cross-cultural methodologies can be addressed by panels that focus on specific regions and sectors, and/ or theoretical innovations.